


Pictures On The Wall

by LolaBleu



Category: Divergent Series - Veronica Roth
Genre: Alternate Universe, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-21
Updated: 2014-11-21
Packaged: 2018-02-14 01:23:29
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 59
Words: 59,103
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2172618
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LolaBleu/pseuds/LolaBleu
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A series of Divergent/FourTris drabbles written from prompts submitted to my Tumblr (BleuWrites).</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. VI

**Author's Note:**

> The rating will vary from drabble to drabble, but if they're higher than "teen" I'll put the rating in paranthesis w/ the chapter title. Some of these are AU, some canon-compliant through Divergent/Insurgent, lots of Patterns & Fairytales stuff.

* * *

  **Prompt: 3 sentence (or more) that happened before the beginning of your current project (The Happy Ending)**

* * *

 

There are places on the body that hurt more than others to get tattooed. The spine is one of them, and maybe time has dulled the memory of that pain - or maybe it’s just that the skin was thicker there from too many lashes of his father’s belt -, but Tobias doesn’t remember it hurting nearly as much as having the tender, thin underside of his wrist tattooed now does.

He feels his heart thrashing against his ribs, his stomach tying in knots, his breath sharp and high in his throat, and he understand why Tris’ eyes were watering so much when she was in the chair getting her own version of this tattoo done. He tries not to move though; he doesn’t want this tattoo to have any flaws. Especially this tattoo.

And when Tori finishes, wiping away the excess ink and blood, he can’t help thinking it was all worth it to have a perfect **VI** indelibly imprinted on his skin.

 

 


	2. Jealous Four

**Prompt: Do you think you could write a one-shot of Tobias being insanely jealous of another guy?**

 

* * *

 

Tobias has never paid much attention to his emotions. That sort of self reflection has never led him anywhere good. He keeps it basic. Anger. Pain. Disappointment. Happiness - which is rare, but beautiful. He identifies it, and moves on. Simple as that.

It’s not until Tris falls into his life that things get complicated. It takes him a while to admit to himself that he likes her. More than likes, actually. There’s desire there, potent and heady, which encompasses myriad things all on it’s own. He wants her laugh, wants her smart mouth, wants her body. He doesn’t know what to do with any of that. It’s not simple.

It’s not long after that, that he gets his first taste of jealousy. When he sees Al giving her a piggy-back ride through the Pit - happy, carefree, and _beautiful_. It’s the first time Tobias has looked at another man as competition. And it’s because of that jealousy that he finally acts, finally does something other than wear the Four persona around her.

He stops them. He teases. He tells her she’s beautiful. It’s the truth, and she should know it, and that’s where he’s got Al beat. Because the big dough boy is clumsy and shy and soft spoken, and Tobias is _drunk_ , but he can’t pursue Tris the same way Al is, at least not yet, and he’s got to level the playing field somehow.

And if it stopped at that, maybe it would be okay. But it doesn’t. Because Tobias finds himself really hating Al. And he knows it’s his jealously, this one-sided competition they’re in that’s making him act out, but that’s not enough to stop it either.

Every day when it’s Al’s turn to go under the simulation Tobias is more Four than he’s ever been. He’s hard and cold and his eyes are always malicious. He doesn’t offer Al the wry smile he does Christina when she fights off her moths. He doesn’t give him the sympathetic glance he does Will when he wakes gasping and shaking from his fears. He doesn’t offer him advice like he does Tris.

He doesn’t view him with disgusted contempt like he does Peter either, but that would be better because at least that’s impersonal, at least until Peter attacks Tris, but that’s still not jealousy.

He wants Al to wash out. And he’s doesn’t make it any easier on Al, doesn’t give him any glimmer of hope like he does the other initiates. Because while he might belong in Dauntless, he doesn’t belong with Tris. Tobias does. So he does everything in his power to make him not want to stay. He just doesn’t expect Al to take a grand tour of the Pit by flinging himself into the Chasm.

And he’d feel bad about the hand he played in that, except it’s hard not to feel like he won when Tris is soft and small and warm and crying in his arms. Because that’s where she belongs.

 


	3. Hero - The Happy Ending out-take

**Prompt: Tobias finds out he's Benjamin's hero**

**~ youseethingsandyouknow**

* * *

 

After the bombing the school’s shut down for a week. Tris needs time to heal - whether she’ll admit it or not -, so he forces her to bed and keeps Benjamin and Matthew with him as much as possible so they don’t disturb her. The night before Benjamin is set to go back to school he’s bent over the coffee table, one arm shielding the paper he’s furiously writing on and his face puckered in concentration.

“What’s that?” Tobias asks, curious.

“Homework,” Ben answers, not looking up.

“They gave you homework on the first day?” he scoffs. He's not so old that he doesn't know that kind of sucks.

“Yeah.”

“What is it?” Tobias imagines a sheet full of math equations, or maybe sentences to test the students reading comprehension or vocabulary. Just something to give the teacher an idea of where each student is, academically.

“Um, it’s a bunch of questions, so Ms. Black learns about us,” Ben says, lifting up the paper and flashing it briefly. Not so much that Tobias can see the actual questions, just the bold text at the top that says ‘Getting To Know You’.

“Oh. Well that’s not too bad,” Tobias says, a feeling a little silly for over-thinking it like he did.

Benjamin just shrugs and focuses on his work again, so Tobias does the same. The report he’s reading it dry and boring and his eyes keep flicking to his son, and his curiosity only grows because whatever the questions are, Benjamin seems to be putting a lot of thought and effort into answering them.

But what really piques Tobias’ interest is the way Ben is being so secretive. He doesn’t ask for his father’s help, doesn’t even show it to him when he’s done like he usually does. Instead he hurries over to his backpack, picks out his school folder and stuffs the paper between a bunch of others that need to go back with him tomorrow.

“All finished?” Tobias nonchalantly.

“Mmhmm.”

Tobias doesn’t mention it again. They go through their usual nighttime routine, and Tobias listens patiently as Benjamin reads him a story - marvels that he’s getting so big and so smart that Ben’s the one doing the reading now -, but that paper niggles at the back of his mind.

He waits until Benjamin is fast asleep, waits until the dishes are done and he’s shutting off the lights and going to bed himself, and tells himself that’s he’s just making sure all the million forms the school sent home are filled out and signed like they should be, to sneak a peek at it.

There’s the usual name, age, place of birth - which ten years ago wouldn’t have been asked -, and things like _What is your favourite color?_ (red), _Do you have any pets?_ (No, but I really want a dog), and _What’s your favourite food?_ (ice cream cake). The one that makes Tobias smile though is, _Who is your hero?_

Because under it, in Ben’s blocky, little-boy print it says “My dad”.

 


	4. School Library AU

**Prompt: Do you think your could write a one-shot AU where Tris and Four meet at a bookstore?**

(I couldn't think of anything that wasn't cliche so I changed it to the school library)

* * *

 

The first day of his senior year, Tobias doesn’t see her in the library when he takes refuge there during lunch. She’s there, sees him, but he doesn’t see her. The next day he _does_ see her, and the reason she catches his attention is because she’s so small. He wonders, disbelieving and contemptuous, if they’re letting junior high kids in there now. 

She’s back the next day and so is he, and it’s the first time he gets a look at her face. She’s not as young as her stature made him assume. And she’s not pretty either, but she is striking, especially her eyes. They’re demanding of something he doesn’t know, and they stay with him the rest of the day.

And the next.

And the next.

And it’s not until the next week, after they’ve spent days mincing around each other that he has occasion to talk to her. 

He’s looking for a book about Picasso because he’s got a research paper to write, and she’s just pulling down  _Techniques of Modern Artists_ , which he needs when he rounds the corner of her aisle. 

He looks at the book and then her, only belated realizing how cross his expression must be. 

"Sorry. Did you need this?" she asks, offering it to him. He has a hard time not drowning in the blue of her eyes.

His tongue feels thick and useless and not remotely capable of the intricate movements needed to form words, but he tries anyway. “Yeah, um, but if you… ah, need it for Edinger’s paper I can wait.”

God he sounds like an idiot. His cheeks burn with embarrassment. 

"I don’t know who that is. It just… looked… interesting," she says haltingly. "Here," she offers extending it towards him, "take it."

"You’re in here every day," he comments, reaching for it.

"So are you."

"My friends graduated last year," he shrugs and then wants to kick himself. He never offers up more information than was asked. Ever.

"I don’t have any friends. I’m new here."

"And you think you’re going to make some hanging around the library during lunch every day?" he asks, incredulous. 

"I don’t know. Maybe," she says with a small, shy smile. "I’m Tris, by the way."


	5. Little Brothers Aren't So Bad - 40 Weeks out-take

**Prompt: Could you write a snippet about when Matthew is a newborn and how Benjamin interacts with him at first?**

* * *

 

“Is it awful?” Zoey asks, her voice hushed and horrified, like having a little brother is a grievous injury.

“No. Well it was at first,” he hedges because he knows he’s supposed to be upset about not being an only child anymore. “Matty cried a lot and slept a lot, but it’s alright now.”

And he did cry, but according to his dad not as much as Ben did when he was born. _We learned all the tricks from you_ , he teased and that made Benjamin feel a little better. So now they know to swaddle Matthew nice and tight and keep him in a bassinet by their bed, and really he only cries because he doesn’t know how to talk yet, at least according to his mom.

Their conversation is cut short by a knock at Zeke and Shauna’s door, and Ben knows it’s his parents come looking for him so they can go to the park. Now that Matthew is almost a month old they have a routine: after lunch Benjamin goes to Zoey’s while his parents and the baby take a nice long nap; afterwards they go to the park and stay as long as they can, and then after that they get the baby fed and ready for bed.

Ben says a quick goodbye and pushes himself to his feet. He bounds down the hallway from Zoey’s room to the living room just in time to see Zeke cooing at the infant strapped to Tris’ chest like an idiot and his mom quipping that, “I thought only women got ‘baby fever’.”

“Shuddup,” he scowls at Tris, but a second later he’s back to cooing at Matthew.

“Come on, Ben,” his dad laughs, waving him over. “We better get out of here before your uncle tries to kidnap your brother.”

The walk to the park is a short one. It’s still summer and the days are long and hot, but with evening settling in it’s not too bad. There’s a soccer game going on in the middle of the big empty field at the front of the park, and that piques Matthew’s interest for a while, what with all the movement and shouting.

Both his parents still have purple shadows under their eyes, but they make an effort to play with Benjamin too, and not have everything be all about the baby. Tris still can’t run around much, but they toss a frisbee back and forth for a while, long enough for Ben’s bangs to stick to his forehead with sweat before she finds a nice tree to sit under so she can rest.

Tris unravels the long length of fabric holding the baby to her chest and rests Matthew flat on his back, on the ground next to her. His gaze is drawn to the canopy of leaves above them, the light playing through them in the gentle breeze making him gurgle happily. It buys them enough time that Ben can tell her about the huge fort he and Zoey made with the tub of building blocks she has.

Once the sun starts to set in earnest they head home. Matthew gets hungry-fussy and Tris gives him his dinner while Tobias and Benjamin cook their own. By the time they’re ladling out the pot of mac ‘n cheese onto three separate plates she’s back, ready to hand the baby off to Tobias so she can enjoy a meal herself.

“You ready to help me with your brother?” Tobias asks once they’re done, and Tris is slipping away to take a shower so she doesn’t smell like spit-up and dirty diapers and exhaustion all the time.

Benjamin nods eagerly, already knowing what to do. He retrieves Matthew’s boppy pillow from his parents room, and then sifts through a small box of toys under the coffee table to find a few that he thinks his brother will like best.

They settle the baby on the floor, propped up on his stomach by the pillow and try to draw his attention to the toys so he’ll learn to lift his head. He still can’t do it for very long, but he’s particularly drawn to the rattle Ben holds; Matthew even tries to paw at it, though he’s still clumsy and uncoordinated and misses it by several inches.

“I think he likes you,” Tobias says quietly, being thoroughly ignored by the newborn.

It makes Ben smile, and he flattens out on his belly too so he can be on Matthew’s level, and rattles the toy between them. “Do you like me?” Matthew makes a high, happy noise in the back of his throat that Benjamin thinks means yes.

Tris comes out then, wrapped in a robe and her hair twisted up in a towel, turban-like. She watches them play for a few minutes more before Tobias decides it’s bath time. As they troop past her into the bathroom Tris cups Benjamin’s face in her hands and plants a kiss on his forehead.

“Thank you for helping, Ben,” she murmurs, smiling a little.

“I like to help,” he says simply. That earns him another kiss before Tris releases him.

His dad already has the funny foam thing to wash the baby in filling up with water in the bathroom sink, and Benjamin drags his stool over so he can help with this too. Benjamin distracts his brother with a little rubber squeaky duck while his dad washes him. Between the two of them they get the job done quickly and without a single tear shed. They both feel proud of that.

“Why don’t you go pick out a book to read,” Tobias suggests as he diapers and dresses the baby.

Benjamin is still learning how to read, but after finishing kindergarten he can read simple books, and his parents encourage him to practice his skills by reading to his brother. Tonight he decides that Matthew would really like hearing about Pete The Cat. It doesn’t hurt that it’s Benjamin’s favourite book too.

So while his dad takes his turn in the shower he sits in the middle of his parents bed with mom and start methodically reading the words of the book propped in his lap. His eyes keep flicking down to his brother though, when he notices he’s being watched by Matthew, and since some of the words he still has to carefully sound out to get right, it’s very slow going. But him smile so big it hurts when he notice’s the infants eyes flutter and close and eventually fall asleep.

“He’s just like you,” his mom whispers as she settles the baby in his bassinet.

“Yeah?” Ben says, equally quiet.

“Mmhmm. We used to get you to sleep the same way.”

She flops back against the pillows and draws him close. Her fingers card soothingly through his hair. “Are you happy, baby?” she asks, an edge of worry to her voice.

“I’m okay,” he hums.

“You know your dad and I just want you to be happy, right? Even though the baby takes a lot of time and energy, you’re important too.”

“I know.”

“And you don’t have to help if you don’t want to,” she adds.

“I like to.”

“Okay. But if there’s a day when you don’t like it, you don’t have to. You can just be Ben and not a big brother,” she says as she kisses the crown of his head. 


	6. Hacktivist/Activist AU

**Prompt: Can you do one where Tobias gets really badly injured and Tris has to take care of him?**

* * *

 

There’s a difference between being a hacktivist and an activist, and though Tobias can cause his own digital revolution, there’s no chance of a militarized police force doing crowd control by firing rubber bullets and tear gas in his apartment to stop him. But sometimes change requires bodies in the streets and not fingers on a keyboard. Unfortunately change also requires your opponents (or oppressors, depending on which side you’re on) to have a conscience, which the Bureau doesn’t.

Fear, anger, hostility, and contempt coalesced in the lines between them and exploded out. Violence beget violence. It’s a tale as old as time.

Tobias can still hear the sounds of it as he stumbles away, into narrow alley’s crowded with trash, feeling more than seeing his way to safety. He can’t go home, at least not yet. The Bureau might come looking for anyone who got away, and as much as he hates it there’s only one other place he can think to go, at least in the condition he’s in.

By the time he makes it to Tris’ place what little vision he has is starting to go black around the edges from lack of oxygen, the tear gas making him cough so much it’s impossible to get enough air into his already inflamed lungs. It’s not exactly doing wonders for his ribs either, which may not be broken but sure as hell hurt from being kicked repeatedly.

He tries to be quiet, not wanting to draw anyone’s attention, but he more or less lumbers into her door with a crash that can’t be ignored, and she exclaims loudly when she opens it and he falls through. He lets himself be guided, prodded, pulled towards her bathroom, and is only aware she’s put him the shower by the cold burst of water that beats down on him moments later. If he wasn’t so out of it he might be surprised when she clambers in after him.

“Tobias, you’ve got to open your eyes for me,” she demands, her voice high and panicked.

He doesn’t want to, but he does, only to have them drenched in saline solution. It takes a while, but his vision clear eventually.

“I’m not going to say ‘I told you so’,” Tris snipes, helping him pull off his wet clothes.

“Yes you are,” he rasps, though the coughing has mercifully subsided. “Repeatedly, if I know you.”

She glares at him, her lips pinched into a thin, hard line, but doesn’t say anything else, just hands him a jar of baking soda. Between the two of them they get his body caked in a paste of the stuff to remove the chemicals coated on his skin. While he sits idly letting it work she disappears with his clothes since they’ll have to be carefully washed before he can wear them again.

When Tobias stands up to rinse off his head spins, and he has to brace himself against the wall to not faint, or at least not fall again. That’s how Tris finds him when she comes back, and despite her surly silence her hands are gentle as she helps him rinse off; as she leads him out and sits him on her bed; as she starts treating his wounds.

His knuckles are bloody from fighting back, and he’s got a deep gash in his leg that he has no idea how he got. “This might need stitches,” Tris says worriedly from where she’s crouched on the floor, dowsing it in rubbing alcohol.

“Just wrap it tight,” Tobias says through clenched teeth.

She huffs a little, annoyed, but does just that. She wraps his ribs tight too, but that feels like exquisite relief.

He feels better by the time she done, but he still feels wrecked. It takes everything in him to tug on a pair of his sweats that somehow never found their way back to his place and collapse into her bed. It smells like her; like lemons and ginger and Tris.

She lays down next to him, careful not to move the bed too much. When he opens his eyes she’s watching him, her hands tucked up under her face, child-like.

“I’m sorry I had to come here,” he whispers, reaching out for her. “I don’t want you to get hurt because of me.”

“You know what they say: home is the place where, when you have to go there, they have to take you,” she hums, knotting her fingers with his in the space between them. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> all credit for the last line to Robert Frost


	7. Bumps - Patterns & Fairytales out-take

**Prompt: Ben or Matty gets sick/injured and Tris/Tobias have to take care of him**

* * *

 

They think it’s the flu at first. At least all signs point that way, and with Benjamin starting kindergarten, being around and exposed to all those other children and the germs they carry, it was bound to happen sooner or later. They keep him home, give him medicine for his fever and tea for his sore throat and upset stomach. It will pass in a few days, they’re sure.

But it doesn’t. The next day when he’s undressing for his bath Tobias sees the smattering of little red bumps on his chest.

“They’re itchy,” Ben tells him when Tobias asks if they hurt.

Tobias calls Tris into the bathroom to show her, worry etching lines in his face.

“You’ve got chicken pox, Ben,” she announces.

They take Benjamin down to the infirmary because that’s what you’re supposed to do. Doctor Gonzales checks him over, and prescribes cold baths and calamine lotion in addition to what they were already doing.

“I’ll write you a note for the school,” she says as she peels off her exam gloves. “He’s going to have to miss a few weeks. It shouldn’t be a big deal; it’s one of those things every kid gets.”

“I didn’t,” Tobias says, more focused on helping Ben put his shirt back on than anything else.

“Were you vaccinated?” Dr. Gonzales asks sharply.

“I don’t know,” Tobias shrugs. “Does it matter? Ben was vaccinated and he still got it. Besides, I’m an adult.”

“Which means it will be much worse for you if you get it,” she says grimly. “Tris, have you had it?”

She nods. “When I was about Ben’s age, actually.”

The doctor lifts Benjamin off the exam table and sets him in his mothers arms before patting it and saying, “your turn,” to Tobias. He looks a little embarrassed when she asks him to take his shirt off. He doesn’t have any spots, or any other symptom for that matter, but Dr. Gonzales still gives him a vaccination before sending them on their way. It may not work - he's already been expose -, but it's worth a try.

There’s nothing to do for Ben except wait it out and make him as comfortable as possible. The rash spreads to his arms and legs, and though he’s a champ about not picking at the spots, when it spreads to his back he can’t help rubbing up against the couch cushions or his pillows to ease the itch.

Tris and Tobias are constantly scolding him for it, and after a few days Ben has a meltdown because it _itches_ , but by the end of the week things seem to have run their course, though Ben still has to stay out of school until all the scabs heal.

The night before he goes back to school Tobias gives him his bath like usual, and after they both get him to bed, Tobias gets ready to take a shower himself. The damn tag on his shirt has been a constant irritant all day and once he’s pulled it off he reaches around to itch the area one last time. His stomach drops into his shoes when he feels a bump there.

“Shit,” he hisses, flinging the shirt away and trying not to panic as he rushes into the kitchen where Tris is cleaning up the dinner dishes.

“Look at my back,” he demands. “I’ve got a bump.”

Tris angles him around so the light hits him just right. “Oh my God,” she says, inhaling sharply.

“What? What is it? Do I have chicken pox?” he says, trying to look over his shoulder, but mostly looking like a dog chasing it’s tail.

Tris tries to keep her eyes big and worried, but the more she watches him the more the facade cracks and before he knows it’s she’s snorting, trying to suppress her laughter.

“It’s… a… spider bite,” she gasps out before giving in completely and laughing so hard she’s doubled over and not making a sound.

“I hate you.”

“You love me,” she says when she straightens up to find him glaring at her. She pushes up on her toes and kisses him sweetly. “But you’re right, that was mean of me. How about I make it up to you in the shower?”

 


	8. Jealous Tris (Explicit)

**Prompt: Can you do one with jealous Tris?**

* * *

 

Through the spray of the shower and the frosted glass of the door Tris can see Tobias moving around in the bathroom. Stripping down to his boxers and pulling on a clean undershirt to sleep in. Politely twisting the tap at the sink for only a second so she didn’t get blasted with cold water while he brushes his teeth.

She wants to strangle him.

He hovers and she lingers, delaying the fight that is brewing between them. Once he’s gone she gets out, twists a towel around herself like a storm cloud. She feels him watching her through the open door as she brushes her teeth.

“Are you going to tell me why you’re pissed?” he asks, his voice in that maddeningly neutral tone he uses when he thinks she’s over-reacting.

She spits out venom along with the foam in her mouth. “I can’t believe you’re asking me that,” she hisses.

“What should I have done then?” she challenges.

“Not gone,” she snaps, slamming the medicine cabinet closed. “When Nita - the person who almost got Uriah killed - wants to secretly meet up with you, _you don’t go_. What did she want anyway? Your help planting another bomb that almost kills our friends, or just to sleep with you?”

“You’re being ridiculous,” he huffs. “It’s not like that.”

He flings back the blue quilt on the bed they’re supposed to be sharing now, half covering the clean clothes she stupidly left there.

“It’s exactly like that,” she seethes, crossing the room with quick angry steps, intent on snatching up her clothes and disappearing back into the bathroom. “And the fact that you - _Mister I-don’t-trust-anyone_ \- doesn’t see that makes me wonder if you don’t want her too.”

Well there it is. She’d feel the wounds the words came from freshly if she wasn’t so angry at Tobias.

The glare he gives her could level a building.

Tris whips around, ready to retreat - to the bathroom, to Christina’s couch, before they both say things they’ll regret in the morning - when Tobias hands snaps closed around her wrist, trapping her.

“Let. Go.”

“No.”

He’s the immovable object and she’s the irresistible force, and she thinks there really should be a better metaphor for their impasse, but she can’t think of one when all she can think about is him and someone else.

He shifts, predatory, boxing her in between his knees as he sits on the edge of the bed. His free hand slips under the edge of the towel, curling around her thigh; palm warm against the back, rough fingers on the sensitive inside.

“The only person I want to sleep with is you,” he bites out.

She lets his hand go higher, only vaguely aware of how much of a struggle it is to breathe when he’s watching her like that, pupils so fat they eat away all but the tiniest ring of deep blue.

Her body has always been a traitor to this boy. Even before her head and heart knew what was going on, her body did. He makes her feel like she’s on fire.

His thumb presses flush against the crease at the top her thigh, his knuckles grazing where she’s already getting wet for him. She has to bite her lip to hold back a moan. And he knows it.

He likes being in control. She likes it too, now that she’s past her fear of intimacy. But that isn’t how it’s going to go tonight. Because she’s still angry. And jealous. And he - he is _hers_.

She lets him nudge her legs apart a little more, gives him the space to slip his fingers inside, and gives him the impression she’s forgiven and forgotten.

And it feels _good_ , his fingers moving inside her, his lips and tongue and teeth worrying her breasts when she lets the towel fall away. But it feels _better_ when she pushes him down on the bed and makes him forget how to breathe altogether by licking a wet stripe up the length of him.

His fingers dig into her hips as she slowly lowers herself onto him. It still takes them both a minute to adjust to the feel of him inside her, but soon enough he’s urging her to the rhythm they both know they like.

Except tonight she doesn’t let him. Her hands close around his wrists, digging ragged crescents into his flesh as she peels them away, forces them down onto the bed though it makes her tilt over him. She moves slowly, her hips drawing figure eights and pressing them together in a way that makes her clench around him with every revolution.

“Do you?” she demands.

“Do I what?” he answers, sounding like he’s drowning.

“Do you want her?”

“Fuck, _Tris_ ,” he groans, arching into her.

She stops and he looks like he’s going to die.

“No,” he chokes out. “I don’t want her.”

She starts moving again, releases on hand as a reward for his answer. It slides up her side, between her shoulders, into the wet hair at the nape of her neck and tangles there. He pulls her down for a sloppy kiss and she lets him do that too, for a minute before angling down instead.

“Only ever you,” he mumbles, as she bites and sucks at his flesh, turning the smooth expanse of his shoulder into a canvas painted red and blue and black by her mouth. “Always you.”

She nips at his ear, draws the soft, tender lobe between her teeth and bites down just hard enough to make him twitch inside her. His hand fumbles between their slick bodies, desperate, but by the time they get to the place they’re joined there’s nothing clumsy about his touch.

She bites an angry red mark into the side of his neck when he makes her come, barely aware that the pain and the feel of her body clenching tightly around him is enough to finish him off too.

“You’re mine,” she says, after, languorously sedate on top of his chest.


	9. Famous Last Words - 40 Weeks out-take

**Prompt: Can you write a snippet about Tris and Tobias realizing that Matthew really prefers Tris as a baby?**

* * *

 

Matthew, unlike his brother Benjamin, is a very reactive baby. If he’s happy, everyone knows it. If he’s upset, everyone knows that too. It makes it impossible for Tris to take him with her to the other factions when she’s visiting as the Dauntless ambassador, though that’s not really a problem; Tobias set up video conference links with them before Matthew was born so she could keep doing the job that she loves.

No, the problem is visiting the Bureau, since he can’t do the same for them. Tris isn’t quite sure why; Tobias tried to explain it one night, and she vaguely recalls something about the distance and poor connections and the video link buffering so frequently it was pointless. Whatever the reason she has to actually, physically go out there and taking Matthew with her is out of the question.

It’s the first time since he’s been born that’s she been away from him for more than minutes, and she’s kind of looking forward to that - to just being Tris instead of ‘mom’ (or ‘ma-ma’ as Matty exclaims every time he wants her attention, which is most of the time) -, but Tobias assures her that he can wrangle their 9 month old, no problem.

Famous Last Words.

On the morning of, Tris kisses him on the forehead as Tobias sits on the couch giving him a bottle and then she’s out the door. Matthew watches it eagerly, thinking he knows this game, thinking Tris is going to pop back in any minute and make him laugh at her and her great trick.

Except she doesn’t. And the longer Matthew waits the more impatient and fussier he gets. He drops his bottle and starts squirming in Tobias’ lap. Crawling is still new to Matty, but Tobias recognizes the signs and sets him gentle on the floor, well away from any impediments like the coffee table since he still moves a little like a tiny drunk.

Even though he lists and pitches, he makes it to the door quicker than Tobias has ever seen him crawl anywhere. He sits there, pawing at it for a minute, looking for a handhold to draw himself up with, but it’s just smooth wood and the handle is miles out of his grasp.

Tobias gets his attention with his favourite squeaky toy. He always feels like an asshole using it because it’s practically a dog toy, but either way it lures Matthew back to him, for a while anyway. He can see the temper tantrum building in his son’s eyes, gathering like storm clouds ready to burst after the third time Matty makes the trip from his father to the door and back again.

The fourth time Matthew barely acknowledges him before he plops down and paws at the door again, a pathetic, tremulous, “Mama?” eeking up his throat, quickly followed by a flood of tears.

Tobias scoops him up, starts walking and talking because usually that’s a sure fire way to get Matthew to settle, but today it doesn’t do the trick. He keeps crying, working up into a full shrieking tantrum. It scares the hell out of Tobias; he’s never seen Matthew like this. And he doesn’t know what the to do about it. Tobias tries distracting him with his favourite toys, tries offering him the bottle again, tries cradling and soothing him. None of it works.

After an hour Tobias is sure his hearing is never going to be the same again, and he’s at the end of his rope. He can feel the panic working it’s way up, hot and bitter like bile. He puts Matthew in his crib, winds up the mobile tight and goes to call Zeke.

And after he goes through the regular checklist of _wet, hungry, tired_ , Zeke’s sage advice is, “Fuck if I know, it’s your kid.”

“Thanks,” Tobias snaps, slamming down the phone.

Matthew is still howling in the other room, and Tobias looks at the clock, mentally calculating the time it takes Tris to get from the Pire to the Bureau. She should almost be there. He decides to leave a message for her at the front desk, and in the meantime… he doesn’t know what.

He goes back into the boys room. Matthew is standing up now, his fingers white around the rails of the crib and his face flushed and feverish. _Maybe that's it_ , he thinks. _Maybe he’s sick_. Sick he can fix, after all.

Tobias grabs the thermometer out of the medicine cabinet, and though Matty fights him when he sticks it in his ear, he’s able to get a reading. But 99.6 isn’t a fever, really; he’s probably just a little warm from crying and screaming. But it could be colic. Of course he’s a little old for it, but that’s not to say it coudn’t happen. Ben was almost a tearful when he was sick with it.

He’s crying so loud Tobias almost doesn’t hear the phone ringing, but when he does he sprints for it.

“What’s wrong?” Tris demands on the other end of the line.

“I don’t - I don’t know,” Tobias stutters. “He just won’t stop crying. I think he’s sick,” he tells her, though he doesn’t tell her he thinks it’s colic since he thinks she’ll think he should be able to handle that on his own, and right now he’s so far out of his depth he’s not sure where the surface is.

“I’m coming home.”

“No. I can take him to the infirmary,” Tobias protests, but it’s a weak one. “You’re already out there,” he adds. “Might as well get it over with.”

“I’m coming home,” she says, emphatic. He can hear the muffled sounds of her talking to someone else, probably telling whoever she’s got a ‘family emergency’ and demanding a ride back to town.

“Just… try to get him down for his nap, and we’ll take him to the infirmary when I get home.”

“That’s not going to happen. Listen,” Tobias says, then holds the phone towards the door to the kids room.

“If he’s really that upset maybe you should take him to the infirmary, and I’ll just meet you there,” Tris suggests.

“Yeah, okay,” Tobias agrees.

He hangs up, checks Matthew’s diaper one last time, and heads for the Pit. Most people are at lunch, but he get plenty of dirty looks on the way to the infirmary. He feels like punching every person who glares at him because it’s not like he likes being serenaded by screaming baby either.

They’re backed up at the infirmary, but mercifully, the nurse on duty puts them in an empty room to wait so he doesn’t disturb the other patients. It’s not much better than his situation was in his apartment, but the doctor will get to them as soon as she can and Tris is on her way home and all he feels is relief.

Tobias passes the time, fruitlessly pacing, still trying to quiet Matthew, though it’s not any more effective now than it was before. He tries not to look at the clock since the minutes seem to be dragging by, and it already feels like an eternity, several actually, when the door creaks open and Tris steps inside.

“Oh thank God,” he groans. “The doctor’s coming, but-”

Tris completely ignores him, reaching for Matthew and drawing him into her arms. She has to shout over his cries at first, and it takes a while for his swollen, red, angry eyes to focus on her, but when they do he hiccups into silence. Within minutes he’s asleep against her shoulder as she paces around, murmuring to him.

“Well, fuck,” Tobias grouses, dropping into the chair against the wall. “I always knew he liked you better, but this is ridiculous.”


	10. Sunday's - The Happy Ending out-take

**Prompt: Can you write about Sophie? Just something short and sweet that doesn't involve any plot spoilers from The Happy Ending?**

* * *

 

Sunday’s are lazy in the Eaton household. No one bothers to change out of their pajamas because, while they may have places to go, people to see, and things to do every other day of the week, Sunday is theirs; they don’t go out and no one comes over.

They all crowd into the kitchen and with two rowdy boys and a baby their usual pancake breakfast almost always includes a minor disaster like batter spilled across the counter (or splattered in Matthew’s hair one time when Sophie was practicing grabbing things while her mommy’s attention was diverted). It’s loud and happy and they’re together, a family.

And while everyone looks forward to those breakfasts and stuffing themselves, they also look forward to the nap afterwards. With the chill of fall pressing against the windows they light a fire in the fireplace and spread out pillows and blankets in front of it for Benjamin, Matthew, and the dog.

Baby Sophie sprawls across Tobias’ chest, though. She doesn’t get to sleep here often, usually just on Sunday’s, but it’s her favourite place, the place she sleeps the best, lulled as she is by the steady metronome of his heart under her ear.


	11. Ben's First Steps - Patterns & Fairytales out-take

**Prompt: Could you write one where either baby Matthew or Ben takes their first steps?**

* * *

 

Benjamin wobbles in the space between Tris and Tobias, tries to take one more step towards his father and falls forward onto his hands. It’s hard for Tris to watch her son fail. She wants nothing more than to rush forward and hold him steady as he tries to cover the space between the two of them, but this is part of learning. And really he’s doing very well considering he had to learn to slither, and crawl, and stand to get to this point.

Still. It hurts.

And Tris can tell it hurts Tobias too. His lips are pinched in a thin, hard line, and his hands keep twitching where they’re outstretched in front of him, wanting to scoop Ben up every time he falls.

But Benjamin is stubborn. He takes a few awkward steps on all fours, his little hands slapping against the floor as he moves them too, only to push himself upright to take the last, final steps into his father’s arms upright.

He giggles madly as his father tickles and praises him before standing him up again and pointing him towards Tris.

“Come on, Ben,” she enthuses, clapping her hands together and luring him towards her.

He’s not anymore successful on this trip than he was on the last one, but when he gets to her she hugs him tight and coos over him, telling him how big and strong he is; how proud she is of him. He doesn’t understand the words of course, just the tenor of her voice, but it makes him smile all the same.

“Are you getting tired, baby?” she asks, and as if in answer he yawns hugely and snuggles against her.

“I better go get his bath ready,” Tobias says, pushing himself to his feet and disappearing through the door to their bedroom.

“Okay,” Tris says, distractedly, paying more attention to Ben than whatever Tobias has to say.

But Benjamin twists around her arms, frowning. He, at least, is always paying attention to his dad. He struggles in Tris’ arms, pushing against her chest until she releases him. She sets him on his feet again, and prompts him with, “where’s Daddy, Ben?”

Ben sways a little and throws him arms out, steadying himself. He takes one step, then another, and each seems more sure than the last.

“Tobias,” Tris whispers, then repeats it, louder, praying he can hear her over the gush of water in the bathroom, that her yelling won’t distract Ben.

“Wha-” the question dies on his lips, doesn’t even get all the way out as he reappears and catches sight of Benjamin toddling towards him.

They both hold their breaths a they watch and wait and Benjamin finally covers the distance between them without falling or crawling for the first time ever. By the time he gets to his father and smiles up at him gummily, both Tris and Tobias are crying. 


	12. Bath's Have Their Perks (Explicit)

 

**~ Visual prompt provided by yayyaj**

* * *

 

“I never took you for a bath person,” Tris yawns as she stumbles into the bathroom.

“They have their perks,” Tobias says noncommittally.

She leans over the sink to brush her teeth, completely missing the fact that Tobias is staring at her ass as she does so. She’s only got on a camisole and a pair of panties, and it’s just enough to make him want more.

“Hey. Come here,” he says, grabbing for her leg.

She shuffles up the edge of the tub, eyebrow raised in question.

“No. _Come here_ ,” he repeats, one hand latching on the back of her knee and tipping her forward.

Tris shrieks and he laughs and the water sloshes over the side and onto the floor where she used to be.

“See, they have their perks,” he says, smug, now that she nestled on his chest.

Before she can get too annoyed with him he tips her chin back and kisses her. He probably shouldn’t like kissing her as much as he does - he’s a boy, he’s supposed to like fucking, _not_ kissing -, but he does.

Her fingers curl around his neck as they kiss. It’s slow and soft, and each meeting of their lips builds on the last until they’re both breathless.

“Mmm… you have to leave soon,” she mumbles as his hands twist under the wet fabric of her shirt.

“Not for another hour,” he corrects her, kissing her quiet again.

His tongue teases it’s way into her mouth, promising other things; an hour spent exhausting himself with her. He peels off her shirt, tosses it aside to leak on the bathroom floor and groans at the feel of her chest against his, slippery and wet. She’s flushed, all the way from her cheeks to the delicate tips of her breasts when he finally sucks them into his mouth to flick at with the tip of his tongue.

For someone who was so insecure about the size of her breasts she loves it when Tobias mouths at them; he can almost get her off, just from that. He smiles against her skin when she kisses the top of his head sweetly and knots her fingers into his hair, holding him there.

When she finally settles back into his lap her hips cant over his erection and he’d think it was an accident if not for the way she blushes even deeper. “Don’t be shy,” he murmurs, kissing her again. “We should get out though,” he adds.

“I thought you liked bath’s,” Tris teases, though her voice is slow and heavy, drugged. She chases drops of water across his chest with her fingers like she's hypnotized by them.

“I do, but there’s not much space,” he says, nodding to where their legs are already half hanging out.

They slide across the water-slick floor, drunk from each other and uncoordinated. He tugs off her panties and Tris almost falls, but she catches herself on the bed and flops down. Tobias immediately drops to his knees, tugging her to the edge and throwing her legs over his shoulders so he can bury her face at the apex of her thighs.

She tastes like water and soap and Tris. And he loves the way she tastes. It’s the same way she smells, but stronger; condensed and enticing. She arches beautifully, breasts raised in offering, when he slips his tongue inside her to draw more of it out. Still, she doesn’t get close until he’s thumbing at her peaked tips in addition to licking between her thighs, but once he is it doesn’t take her long to tighten and snap around him.

Her eyes are glassy after she comes, and she reaches for him weakly as he stands, wanting him closer. He shakes his head, hooks his hands around her ankles and pushes inside of her. They both hiss at the sensation of him filling her, and though Tobias would swear that she’s just as tight as the first time, now all Tris feels is pleasure. He still gives her time to adjust, still moves slowly relishing the feel of her wrapped around him, tight and hot and wet.

Tris’ toes curl around the bows of his collar bone as his hands drag up and down her legs. He loves her laid out like this, so he can see all of her, nothing hidden between them. He loves too that he can watch himself disappear inside her and that along with the feel of it is almost enough to make him come.

But he doesn’t want this to be over just yet, so with a quick, wet kiss to her ankles he lets her legs go, bows over her to plant a hand on either side of her head. The change in angle gets him deeper, hits something inside of her that has her walls spasming around him and her body shaking. He barely has to touch her to make her come this time.

When she does she moans his name, her fingers clawed into his shoulder as his consonants and vowels elongate into a hiss in her mouth. It’s so erotic that his hips snap and he buries himself in her one last time, groaning all the way from the base of spine as he comes too.

He collapses on top of her, his last bit of strength spent on not crushing her completely under him as they catch their breath.

“You need another bath,” she mumbles, sedate and satisfied.

“No. I want to smell like you all day.”


	13. War of Attrition - Patterns & Fairytales out-take

**So, I actually combined several prompts for this one-shot. The first, submitted by Cissa, asked for a drabble about Tris and Tobias as new parents. The other two anonymous requests asked for a fluffly drabble about Tobias as a new parent, and a drabble about the conversations Tobias had with Ben when he was a baby (as mentioned in the Patterns epilogue), respectively.**

**For the first request I’m using the original epilogue for _Patterns_ that I abandoned and posted on my Tumblr a year ago as an extra. I’m doing this not because I’m lazy, but because I think it’s an important part of their story; one that’s necessary for readers to realize it wasn’t all fluff once Ben was born. **

**I have added to it though, using the other two prompts. It might not be fluffly marshmallow goodness, but it’s sweet and hopeful and important too.**

**I really hope you all enjoy it because these prompts gave me what I needed to finish up an important part of this story :)**

* * *

 

After the war Dauntless, like the other factions, gave it’s members every incentive to have kids in an effort to maintain the population. A month of paid leave for each parent, and food delivered to their doorstep daily, to say nothing of the free housing and medical care they receive. They made it sound like a vacation.

It’s not.

Gone is the ‘easy baby’ all the nurses fawned over in the infirmary; the one that made the nurses joke that man’s first instinct is to suck when he took to nursing like a fish to water; the one who quieted so quickly in his fathers arms after being jabbed with his first vaccines; the one who didn’t mind being passed around like a hot potato when their surrogate family came to visit.

In his place is a seven pound, screaming human who is locked in a war of attrition with Tris and Tobias. They’re on the losing side, and the first casualty is their sleep. Every time they put Benjamin in his crib he’s awake and screaming in thirty or forty minutes. They try everything, but the only thing that seems to soothe him is being held, which sounds endearing in theory, but is exhausting in practice.

And after days of sleep deprivation - and incessant screaming infant soundtrack - gone too is any trace of the young man who was so smitten with their baby the only time he left the infirmary was to move his belongings back to their apartment in the Pire. So when Tris begs Tobias to go buy a co-sleeper bassinet like they had in the infirmary because at least Benjamin slept there, he acts like an asshole.

“No. Absolutely not,” Tobias snaps, his patience just as shot as Tris’. “Our bedroom is our bedroom. Benjamin has his own room and he’s just going to have to learn to sleep in it and not in some bassinet that tucks up against our bed so mommy is only an arms length away. The sooner that happens the better.”

It’s not Tobias’ proudest moment, but ever since they got home from the infirmary he’s been feeling more and more excluded. And jealous. Jealous of Tris devoting all her time to the baby. Jealous of Tris dismissing him with a stressed ‘it’s okay, I can do it’ that really reads as ‘go away’ every time their son needs something. Just jealous. Of her, of Ben, of their bond that he’s excluded from again.

“What is your problem?” Tris snaps back. “Are you seriously that jealous of your son?”

Tobias’ shoulders stiffen defensively and he pinches his mouth shut.

“You’ve got to be kidding me!” She shrieks at him, succeeding only in waking the baby up again. She slams the door between her and Tobias and goes back to the man in her life who at least makes some kind of sense.

Benjamin is still squawking in her arms when Tobias comes in. “I’m not jealous of him, I’m jealous of you! It’s not like either of you need me here,” he shouts. He knows he should probably stop, but it feels good to finally vent the frustrations he’s been trying to ignore even if he hates what it says about himself.

“Fine. You want to be useful?” Tris questions, interrupting his tirade. “Watch him and I’ll go buy it.”

She holds Benjamin out to him and Tobias tucks the infant into his arms like it’s second nature, following as she stomps through the jack-and-jill bathroom and into their room all the same. “Tris,” he says warningly, but before he can do more she rounds on him.

“He’s a baby, Tobias! How selfish are you that you’re going to make all of us suffer because your ego is bruised? We’ll put the bassinet on your side of the bed if that makes you feel more included,” she snaps, pulling on the first pair of shoes she finds and grabbing up her bag. “But if it gets him to sleep I really don’t care what you think.” Because frankly right now she’d cut off her right arm with a dull butter knife for a few hours shut-eye.

When the front door slams shut Tobias looks down at Benjamin where he’s whimpering against his chest, deep blue eyes open wide and watchful. “She’ll be back soon,” he promises, even though it’s exactly what he and Tris were fighting about. “I’m sorry about that,” he adds. Even if the baby can’t understand his parents fighting Tobias still feels like shit for letting him witness it.

He holds onto Ben until Tris gets back, watching stonily as she fixes the latest baby accessory against the side of the bed. Ben’s asleep again by the time they settle him in it, and Tris and Tobias crawl carefully into their own bed. Thirty minutes later the baby is wailing again.

“This is fucking pointless,” Tobias grits out before taking a pillow and the blue quilt and ceding defeat by sleeping on the couch.

Tris pulls Ben onto the bed with her, settling him onto her chest. She feels like screaming. Or throwing things. Instead she breaks down in tears and begs Ben to tell her what’s wrong like he can actually answer.

Once she cries herself out she tries to look at the problem logically, or at least as logically as she can in her state of desperate sleep deprivation. And, admittedly, it takes her a while to have her epiphany, but when she does she nearly starts crying again because it’s so obvious. Babies like being swaddled because it mimics how snuggly they fit in the womb. But a womb is not a quiet a place, and neither was the infirmary. There’s all kinds of sounds, the most constant of which would be her heartbeat.  

She waits until he quiets and settles him in the bassinet and then tiptoes into the nursery to grab the clock that does double duty as a sound machine. By the time she figures out how to work the damn thing Benjamin is whimpering like he’s working up to tears again, but after a few minutes of Tris shushing him and the sounds of white noise swishing out of the little machine he goes to sleep.

And he stays that way.

Tris is asleep before her head hits the pillow.

Benjamin still wakes up every three hours like he did in the infirmary, but he’s just as tired as Tris and after a quick nurse and occasional change he goes right back down, soothed by the familiarity of a warm, snug place to sleep and his favourite sounds.

Tobias stumbles back into the bedroom late the next morning, and in the light of a new day, after a good nights sleep, nothing feels quite so dire. He only winces a little at seeing Tris already awake and playing with the baby. “Hey, we’ve been waiting for you,” Tris says as he walks in, like the last time they spoke they didn’t scream at each other. “I have an idea.”

“Oh?”

“Take your shirt off and lay down on your stomach,” she directs. He quirks an eyebrow at her questioningly, but does as she says. After a little shifting he feels her lay Benjamin flat on his back, skin-to-skin just like the baby books suggest to aid bonding.

“He’s supposed to like to look at black and white patterns at this age, so I thought having ‘tummy time’ on your back so he can look at your tattoos might give him some incentive to learn how to lift his head,” she says, keeping her voice carefully even. The weight of Benjamin on his back is warm and welcome, even if it is slightly squirmy. “Once we’re able to we’ll switch him to a bottle so you can feed him too, but for now I thought we could do this and you could bathe him, so that way you have something that’s just the two of you.”

It’s the perfect way to smooth things over, and since compromise is the essence of diplomacy Tobias isn’t going to pass the opportunity by. “Thank you,” he breathes out, saying more with that simple phrase than the two words put together actually mean.

Tris lays down next to them, arms bunched under her chest in an oddly childlike gesture. Her eyes are nervous and vulnerable and all it does is remind Tobias how young and small she is, how she’s just as lost as he is in their new normal. He reaches back with one arm to keep Ben in place and reaches out with the other for Tris, pulling her forehead flush with his.

* * *

 

“How are you doing with all this?” Zeke asks, tipping his half empty beer towards where Benjamin is currently ensconced in his rocker inn front of them. Zoey’s perched at his side watching him drool with rapt attention. Shauna and Christina decided to kidnap Tris for a few hours, which means Zeke and Tobias get babysitting duty. ~~~~

“Better, I think.”

“Not feeling jealous of Tris anymore?”

“How do you know about that?” Tobias snaps.

“I ran into Tris the other day when she went down to sign the shipping orders for the food from Amity.”

Tobias glares at him. It’s not like Tris to talk about their private problems with friends, even her closest ones, which Zeke isn’t.

“She wasn’t gossiping if that’s what you’re thinking,” Zeke says. “She was asking for advice.”

After a moment, Tobias’ anger crumbles to dust. “It’s better, in a way. She doesn’t try to do everything herself, at least.”

“But?”

He sighs heavily, slumping back against the couch in defeat. “She hovers whenever I’ve got him. Every time he cries she just… I can see the distrust in her eyes, like she’s waiting for me to realize how hard this is and bolt out the door.”

“It’s going to take more than a bassinet and a sound machine to fix that.”

“Yeah.”

“So, are you still jealous?” Zeke asks again since he never really got an answer the first time.

“Sometimes. Weren’t you ever jealous of Shauna?” he asks, nodding towards Zoey.

“No, but Shauna was jealous of me.”

“Why?”

“All the things I can do with Zoey that she can’t because of the wheelchair, more or less. The only way we could get her to sleep was by walking around with her. She felt like I was bonding with Zoey more than she could. There were nights we’d get the munchkin put to bed and Shauna’d yell at me until she cried, and then cried until she fell asleep.”

Tobias picks guiltily at the peeling label of his beer, feeling more and more like a petulant child by the minute in the face of his friends very real struggles.

“Zoey was a tough baby though. She hated nursing - only ever wanted a bottle with formula -, had colic all the time… it was rough, but she was worth it,” he finishes, lips tilting up into a smile by the end. “I’m sure Ben is too, no matter what you’re feeling right now.”

~~xxxx~~

Tris still isn’t home by the time Zeke and Zoey leave. He regrets having that beer in the same instant that he wants another one. Because while it’s true that Tris doesn’t trust him to stay once he realizes how much work a baby is, it’s also true that Tobias doesn’t trust himself with Benjamin.

He can feel that fear cracking up his spine, like fracture lines through ice. And, predictably, Benjamin starts getting fussy. For a few wild moments he thinks about scooping the infant up and running to find Tris, wherever Christina and Shauna have secreted her away. He feels angry too, because it’s been a few hours and she _knows_ that Ben will get hungry just like she _knows_ Tobias can’t do anything about it since she’s still breast-feeding.

But that anger gives him some clarity. And determination. And maybe a little spite too, to prove Tris wrong.

He sinks down to the floor, apprehensive because he doesn’t know what his next move is, but then Benjamin looks at him; _watches_ him, actually, and Tobias creeps forward until there’s only inches between them.

“You’re getting hungry, aren’t you?” he says gently, reaching out a hand to rub on his belly. It’s enough to get Benjamin to stop fussing like he had been. “Yeah. See? I’m not totally clueless.”

They stay like that for a minute until Benjamins little hand paws at Tobias’ bigger one where it’s resting against his chest.

“You’re kind of annoying, do you know that?” Tobias teases.

Ben’s eyes widen at the change in his father’s tone.

“It’s true. You cry all the time; when you’re hungry, or dirty, or tired, and I know it’s because you can’t talk yet, but it’s annoying. Me and your mom really miss sleeping,” he adds a moment later.

And like he can actually understand the words Tobias is speaking to him, Ben’s face screws up, ready to unleash a flood of tears.

“See, this is what I’m talking about,” Tobias sighs, pulling him out of the cradle to soothe him.

He stands up and paces around, bouncing Benjamin lightly in his arms. It settles him a little, or maybe just distracts him.

“Just so you know, I really don’t know what I’m doing. I mean, I read books, but it’s different from actually knowing what to do with you,” Tobias confesses.

And maybe he’d be better equipped for that role had he had a more active one in the pregnancy. Dr. Gonzales insinuated as much at a check-up a few weeks ago, said that father’s who went to prenatal doctors appointments and the myriad classes the infirmary offered on everything from birthing to breastfeeding to childcare with their pregnant partners were more bonded with their children.

But that had been a point of contention during Tris’ pregnancy. True, it got buried under a lot of other stuff, but it bothered Tobias that Tris barred him from her doctor’s visits and everything else, even if he understood why she did. And to be fair, he’s not sure he would have even gone to ‘everything else’; he didn’t particularly want to be a father, at the time. But in retrospect he feels like he missed out on vital information. Like how to be a father.

Of course now that he’s thinking about what Dr. Gonzales said about that, he’s remembering what she said about other things. His memory is a little fuzzy thanks to the extreme exhaustion he was suffering at the time, but he’s pretty sure the doctor recommended that he try and hold Ben the way Tris does when she’s breastfeeding - skin-to-skin and close enough that the baby can make eye contact - to aid in bonding.

“Like when you cry we know to check your diaper and offer you milk, but we’re just going down a checklist; most of the time we don’t know why you’re crying,” he says, finishing his thought from earlier as he carries Ben into their bedroom and sets him carefully down on the bed to strip him down to his diaper. “I think a lot of the time you just do it to fuck with us.”

He strips off his own shirt and gently picks the baby back up before settling in the rocker they moved in here when it became clear Benjamin wanted nothing to do with his own room. The baby paws and roots when he catches sight of his nipple, his little lips smacking wetly in anticipation.

“There’s nothing there for you,” Tobias explains, hitching him a little higher so that Ben can’t see it, and will therefore quickly forget about it.

“I wasn’t sure I could love you,” Tobias admits quietly once Benjamin is staring at his eyes. “I’m still not sure. Your mom suffered so much for you, all through the pregnancy and giving birth and I just want to take care of you two; to make up for all the stupid, shitty things I did to both of you. But I don’t know if that’s love, that need to protect and provide for you both.”

Tobias’ arm is already falling asleep and he shifts Benjamin so the baby is flush against his chest instead of cradled against it. They can’t really keep eye contact this way, but if the way Ben presses into the warmth of his father’s skin is any indication, that’s not such a terrible loss at the moment.

“I don’t think either of you really need me. And I’m supposed to be this big, strong man that stands between my family and everything else? I want to do that, to _be_ that, but I don’t always know how. And I don’t know if that means I love you,” he reiterates. “I don’t think I can love you at the same time I resent you taking all of Tris’ attention though.”

And he does resent it, but he’s also jealous of the bond Tris seems to have so naturally developed with their son; especially since he’s struggling for the same thing. He gets flashes of it sometimes, like when he’s giving Ben a bath, or he’s having ‘tummy time’ on his back, or even like right now when he stops talking long enough to feel Benjamin’s heartbeat resonating against his bare chest.

They stay like that, quietly rocking back and forth, until Tris gets home fifteen minutes later. “Sorry. I’m late, and we lost track of time, and I know he’s hungry -” The words spill out in a desperate, frantic, tight tones as she rushes into the room, completely missing the fact that the baby is perfectly content against Tobias’ chest.

“Hey, we’re fine,” Tobias soothes, feeling for once like he’s doing exactly what he should be. “See?,” he adds, shifting Benjamin so Tris can get a look at his face; he’s so relaxed he’s nearly asleep.

Tobias almost laughs at the blank shock on her face, at the way her mouth opens and closes uselessly as she tries to reconcile what’s in front of her with what she expected to walk in on.

“He’s a little hungry though,” Tobias says, already making to stand up so that Tris can sit down and nurse the baby.

“Can we try something?” Tris says suddenly. “Just keep holding him,” she adds as she starts to unbutton her shirt. She adds it to the pile of Tobias and Benjamin’s clothes at the foot of the bed and lays down on her side.

“Okay, bring him here,” she says, her hands helping Tobias as he settles the infant so he can nurse where Tris is laying. “And you lay here,” she directs, motioning to the space behind her. Once Tobias is in place she reaches behind her and brings his hand forward so they’re both holding Ben as he nurses.

It’s awkward and they’re all tense at first - Benjamin because he’s never nursed like this, Tobias because he’s not sure what the point it, and Tris because she wants it to work so badly -, but then the baby latches on, and Tris sighs with relief, and Tobias presses closer, feeling like part of this for the first time.

“So what did you and Zeke do?” Tris whispers, not wanting to disturb anything, but curious nonetheless.

“Just talked. Had a beer. Only one,” he adds quickly. “It was nice. Normal.”

“Even with the baby there?”

“Even with the baby there,” he confirms. “What did you guys do?”

“The same, basically. I’d forgotten how good it feels to do nothing.”

They lapse into silence again, the only sounds the barely audible noise of Benjamin sucking at her breast. Tobias almost thinks Tris has fallen asleep until she mumbles, “this is nice.”

“It is,” he says kissing her shoulder softly. “We should do it more often.”

“Okay,” she sighs.

It’s another minute before she looks down, her neck tilting at an awkward angle to check on the baby. “I think he’s done,” she announces. She sits up, scooping Ben up in her arms to kiss his cheek. “I think Daddy should burp you,” she says to him before turning towards Tobias and offering him the infant. “Since I did all the hard work.”

“You just laid there,” Tobias says, but he takes Ben and kisses her forehead all the same.

 _“_ At least if he pukes on you, you won’t have to wash another shirt,” she says, motioning to his still bare chest and smirking.


	14. 50 Shades of Awkward (Explicit)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Seriously, I’ve never needed more synonyms for ‘mortified’ and ‘awkward’, ever.

**Prompt: Tris & Tobias have a night to themselves when Matty and Ben are at a friends house.**

**Prompt: Tris & Tobias decide to try something 'new' in the bedroom, to spice things up, and keep things interesting, and it ends up going hilariously wrong.**

* * *

 

“I’ve got a surprise for you,” Christina says cheerfully as she waltz’s into Tris’ office.

Tris looks up from her computer to see her standing there, practically vibrating, with a wide, mischievous smile threatening to crack her face in half.

“Whatever it is, I don’t want it.”

Christina huffs, annoyed, and slaps a wrapped package down on Tris’ desk. “Open it.”

Tris peels the paper away warily, like nothing good can come of giving into Christina’s demands, and that’s just about accurate when she uncovers enough to see that it’s a book. Of sex positions.

“Oh my God, Christina!” she hisses, slamming the expanse of wrapping paper back down so she can’t see the  _very_  graphic cover. “I don’t want it!”

“Trust me, Tris,  _you do_. You just don’t know it yet,” she says devilishly.

“Why are we friends again?” Tris asks, her face blushing so hotly it feels like her skin is on fire.

“Because I care enough to make sure you’re having great sex, that’s why,” Christina says crisply, and succeeding only in Tris blush more fiercely, if that’s possible. “And I know you’ve got two kids, but if you and Tobias have anything other than straight up vanilla sex -”

“- I don’t even know what that means,” Tris mutters, hiding her face in her hands. “Just. Please.  _Stop_.”

“Fine. But I’m taking Ben and Matty tonight. I already worked it out with Tobias,” she says, waving her hand like she’s waving away any protest Tris might make. “And I told him you’ll have a special surprise for him.”

“Out!” Tris shouts, almost throwing the book after her as Christina cackles madly and disappears. Instead she shoves it in her desk drawer and tries not to think of it.

Except she can’t not think of it.

Because her and Tobias have been together for a long time, and she’s always thought their lovemaking was good, great even; maybe not adventurous, but passionate and frequent (or as frequent as it can be with Ben and Matty around) and fun. But maybe Tobias disagrees.

Granted, he’s never hinted at that, but sex isn’t something they talk about; those conversations make them flushed and uncomfortable and awkward no matter how many years are between them and their Abnegation upbringing.

But those thoughts send her into a tailspin all afternoon, feeding old insecurities she thought she was well passed, but apparently isn’t. When 5 o’clock rolls around she shoves the book in her bag and makes a beeline for their apartment.

She slams the door behind her, tosses her bag on the couch, and hides in the bathroom, with the book.

And it’s even worse than she thought.

And more fascinating too, in a horror show sort of way.

Tris’ expression twists as she tries to make sense of the illustrated images in front her. The bodies are color-coded pink and blue and Tris thinks it’s a good thing because otherwise she wouldn’t know whose legs belonged to whom.

She’s so entranced by it though that she doesn’t hear Tobias come into the apartment; doesn’t hear him calling out her name or searching the rooms for her until he’s barging through the bathroom door and she shrieks and drops the book right at his feet.

He looks at it and looks at her and picks it up with ginger fingers and she just wants to die. It would be less painful than this embarrassment.

“Well,” he says licking his lips and trying not to look too shocked, “I don’t think people are supposed to bend that way.”

She’s red faced and mortified and when he asks her where she even got this her answered is a muffled, “Christina.”

“Of course you did,” he sighs, still flipping through the damn book.

Every time Tris hears a page ruffle she wants to rip it out of his hands and burn it.

“This looks dangerous, even by Dauntless standards,” he comments uncomfortably.

It makes Tris brave enough to peek up over the tips of her fingers at him. He’s still staring at the book, turning it so that it’s vertical. His brow is pinched in concentration as he tries to figure out whatever is on the page in front of him.

“Yeah, no. That just looks like a bad idea,” he says, finally closing it and tucking it under his arm. “I guess this explains why Christina was wearing that shit eating grin when she asked if the boys could have a sleepover at her place tonight, huh?”

“Yeah,” Tris says, though the word rasps up her throat, dry as it is.

“Is this, uh, something you’re, ah… interested in?” he asks, refusing to look at her. “Because we could, if - if it’s something you want. I mean it can’t hurt to try new things, right?” The last questions rushes past his lips as he scratches at the back of his neck looking more discomfited than Tris has probably ever seen him.

Tris sighs because she can already seeing this turning into a conversation that goes no where, that get’s mired in ‘if you want’, ‘no, if  _you_  want’; defer and parrot and take no responsibility and no blame.

And she thinks about all the things she spent all afternoon trying to hide from before licking her lips and being the brave one. “Okay, but nothing too… extreme,” he hedges. “And you pick which which one,” she adds, stuttering, because he’s going to be a part of this too, whether he likes it or not.

He nods and pulls the book out again, flipping through it until he lands on a page he stares at with careful consideration for a long time before looking up at her and asking how they should do this.

“Like we always do?” she guesses.

They shuffle out of the bathroom and into the bedroom like two pink cheeked virgins again, mincing around each other.

They fidget at the end of the bed before he laughs nervously. “This shouldn’t be this hard,” he admits.

It makes her feel a little better, and she pushes up on her toes to kiss him. She means it to be a chaste peck, but he holds her against him and kisses her deeply. That goes a long way to making her feel less awkward about this whole situation.

And for a while she forgets to be those things altogether. They fall on the bed and kiss and undress with eager fingers and soft, attentive mouths, and soon enough they’re both panting, wanting more.

He doesn’t ask her if she ready, not when his fingers come away so slick, but unlike every other time they’ve been here he pulls away into of coming closer. Tobias leans over the bed, and Tris can hear him rifling through the book, one hand still on her before he pulls back up a determined expression on his face.

“I think this would be easier on the floor,” he says, his tone and expression serious.

“Okay,” Tris says slowly, slinking off the bed.

“Just lay down and we’ll go from there,” he says encouragingly.

Once she’s on the floor he doesn’t talk so much as help guide her into the position that he wants, which, as it turns out, is tilted up so her weight is resting on her shoulders and neck, her feet up by his ears.

And that’s the easy part.

Because certain parts of his anatomy aren’t designed to point anywhere but up. _Erect_ ; in description and design.

“Is this doing anything for you?” he asks, a little breathless from the effort of holding her up and trying to stay inside her at the same time.

“You mean other than a pain in my neck? No,” she quips.

“Okay. We’ll try something else,” he says, determined, as he lowers her down. She can’t help moaning in relief once she’s flat on the floor again. It’s not the kind of moaning Tobias was hoping to elicit.

Tris raises an eyebrow at him when he lays down next to her. “Alright, I’m going to, uh, lift up. On my hands and feet and then you can… climb. On top. I think it will be easier than trying to lift us both up.”

From the look on his face Tris is pretty sure he’s hoping a hole in the floor is going to open up and swallow him, but she gamely goes along with it.

It takes him a few attempts to lift himself up, to bow his body between his hands and feet. More than anything Tris wants to ask  _why_?

But she doesn’t. Instead she throws one leg over his middle, and she can’t help thinking that this position gives new meaning to  _mounting_  and  _riding_.

It doesn’t feel bad, but it doesn’t feel great either, certainly not worth the strain Tobias is under; his muscles shaking and his face going red.

They persevere until Tris pitches, balanced as she is on her toes, and they both collapse to the floor like a badly stacked house of cards.

“This sucks,” Tobias grits out, looking pained as he gingerly covers his groin. “Can I please just fuck you in bed? Nothing weird. Just us. In bed.”

“Later. I’ve got to find Christina and kill her,” Tris grouses.


	15. Bang, bang

**Prompt: can you do a one shot in which tris is in the training room with the new trainees and tobias is demonstraiting how to shoot a gun and he accidentaly shots her? (not fatal though) please? thank you**

_(I didn’t exactly follow the prompt, but this was the only way I could make it work in a way I was happy with)_

* * *

 

Tobias doesn’t like guns, especially handguns. They exist for only one reason: to kill people. But that’s exactly why the Dauntless leaders insist the initiates train with them.

He starts the them out with standard targets of concentric rings, color-coded so it looks like some party game. Some of the initiates treat it as such. But once they can hit it with any sort of accuracy he moves on to people-shaped targets.

To quiet his conscience he teaches them to disarm first, although he’s not supposed; he’s supposed to teach them the kill-shot and that’s it. Still, what’s the worst Max can do? Throw him out of the faction? He’ll be gone soon anyway, so fuck it.

The initiates crowd behind him like lemmings, watching with varying degrees of attention. What he wouldn’t give to stand Peter up at the other end of the room and use him as an example; might teach the kid to respect the weapons he holds in his hand.

He goes through a list, ticking off each body part with a bullet; wrist, shoulders, legs - he goes more slowly when he works his way to the trunk of the body and it’s vital organs.

“It will take someone ten or twenty minutes to bleed out if you shoot them in the stomach,” he intones and then the sound of the shot ricochets around the room like an exclamation mark.

“The lungs will collapse and fill with fluid in the about the same time if you shoot someone there,” he says, firing another round, making the paper cut-out jerk and flutter from where it hangs by a tiny clip.

“The heart is a small target to hit, but death can be instantaneous if your aim is good.” And right now his aim has to be perfect, if for no other reason than saving face in front of these grunts.

He takes a deep breath, quiets his mind, and pulls the trigger.

And instead of the paper tearing raggedly where the bullet pierces it, there’s a gush of red and wide blue-grey eyes that show shock and fear and realization in the moment before they go lifeless and Tris slumps the floor, her shirt drenched in blood.

When Tobias wakes, screaming and reaching for her in his apartment off the Pit, he suspects his subconscious is trying to send him a message he’s not willing to accept, yet.


	16. Toothaches & Influenza - The Happy Ending out-take

**Prompt: What about a story where Tris has the flu and it's really bad but Tobias has to take Matty to the dentist cause he has a toothache all by himself**

**Prompt: A story where Tris loses her temper with one of the kids, much to everyone's surprise. ~ youseethingsandyouknow**

* * *

 

“But it hurts!” Matthew wails as Tobias desperately tries to get him to brush his teeth.

“Matty, c’mon,” he cajoles.

Matthew’s been complaining about his tooth hurting since last night, but Tris and Tobias learned a long time ago that usually a good brushing and mouth-washing and maybe flossing go a long way to curing whatever tooth is causing their kids pain.

Except it didn’t work with Matty, in fact it seems like the pain has gotten worse overnight. Still, Tobias is going to try again before he takes him to see the dentist.

“No!” Matty shouts petulantly, and clamps his lips tightly closed.

“Matthew, open your mouth,” Tobias demands.

That tone of voice might have put the fear of God in some smart-mouthed initiates a lifetime ago, but it doesn’t work on his youngest son at all. Matthew hums his ‘no’ this time, crossing his arms firmly across his chest and shakes his head vigorously.

“Matthew,” Tris reprimands appearing in the doorway; her voice is raspy and she looks like death warmed up thanks the flu she’s fighting. “Do what you father says. Now,” she snaps before fixing their son with a glare. She’s not usually so short tempered with the kids, but she’s got the flu and Matty is being a brat.

“But it hurts,” he whines, suddenly tearful, his anger bursting like a bubble.

“Fine. Then you’re going to the dentist,” Tris declares, already shuffling back towards the bed.

“But I don’t wanna,” Matthew cries, following after her, tears spilling across his cheeks.

“This isn’t an argument, Matthew!” she yells, rounding on him. He, like his father, is shocked into wide-eyed silence. Tris is the disciplinarian in their house, yes, but she’s never been this short tempered with their kids before. “If your tooth hurts, you’re going to the dentist. End of discussion.”

He stands there, crying, as she gets back in bed, until Tobias picks him up and carries him out.

“Why is Momma so _mean_ ,” he whimpers into his father’s shoulder.

“Because she doesn’t feel good,” Tobias soothes, though he tactfully doesn’t point out that Matty’s own attitude isn’t helping him.

They get to the infirmary, to the waiting room outside the two dental offices housed there until Matty’s temper flares again, and he’s back to refusing to open his mouth for anyone. Dr. Thurber isn’t as phased by it as Tris was though. Instead, he discretely slips a needle into Matthew’s arm while his father distracts him, and knocks him out.

“Sorry about that,” Tobias says sheepishly as he lays his son down in the exam chair.

“I’m used to it,” the doctor says, dismissively. “Now, lets see what all this fuss is about.”


	17. Four makes an appearance - Patterns & Fairytales out-take

**Prompt: Tobias' reaction if he found out/saw [Jason, the Dauntless chef kissing Tris] - in person or on the monitor in the control room. Especially after the chapter from Patterns where Tobias sees Jason going up to Tris' room when she has her cold and his reaction.**

**~ awesomesarahcriderstuff**

* * *

 

Tris goes back to work a month after Benjamin is born. He’s still a squalling ball of baby whose most defining characteristics are crying, pooping, and vomiting, but who still, somehow, needs so much crap to travel from their apartment in the Pire to the office off the dining hall it takes both Tris and Tobias to carry it all.  

There’s the travel bassinet which does double duty as a rocker, and a bag full of everything from diapers and wet wipes to spit up rags (and a few extra shirts for Tris just in case) to pacifiers and toys. Once Tobias gets Tris and Benjamin situated he kisses them both and promises to see them for lunch.

Except that’s not the last or next time he sees them. It’s his first day back to work too and, like he did before he went on paternity leave, he keeps the video feed from the camera outside Tris’ office open in the corner of his screen.

There’s a steady stream of people in and out of her office, which isn’t surprising since it’s the first time Benjamin has been anywhere but the infirmary, and people are curious. He’s sure Tris doesn’t get any work done, not if the harried look when he goes to eat with her is anything to go by.

After one of the kitchen grommets brings them a try of food and coos at the infant one last time Tris locks the door so they can be alone.

“Long day?” Tobias asks, an eyebrow quirked as he reaches for a sandwich.

“Something like that,” Tris mutters around a mouthful of food.

Breastfeeding has it’s consequences and one of them is a ravenous appetite; it’s basically given Tris carte blanche to eat whatever she likes, as much as she likes and still be losing weight.

Their lunch passes easily, the conversation bouncing around unimportant topics, though Tobias does offer to take Ben off her hands for the afternoon. It’s an empty gesture, but one he feels he has to make.

“You’d just have to bring him down every few hours so he can eat. Maybe once we switch him to the bottle though…,” she trails off.

She’s still a terrible liar, and even though the prospect of caring for his son on his own - even for a few hours - is terrifying, he’s hurt by it. She still thinks he’s going to bail, and he really doesn’t know how to fix that except by being involved and she’s not letting him do that.

“Yeah, okay,” he says, a little annoyed.

Benjamin starts getting fussy just as Tris is attacking a piece of chocolate cake that is probably meant to serve two people and of which Tobias won’t get a single bite.

“Eat,” Tobias directs, waving her free hand away when she reaches for the infant. “I’ve got him.”

“You’ve very demanding,” he says, scooping Ben up and cradling him against his chest. He doesn’t really do ‘baby talk’, but he does talk to their baby. “You’re like your mother. After I took her through my fear landscape she was full of questions and wouldn’t let me dodge a single one,” he says conspiratorily.

He can see Tris grinning out of the corner of his eye, so he keeps talking. “You’re probably going to be the same way once you figure out talking. We already know you’re stubborn like your mother, too. You’d probably still be in her belly is biology didn’t take over. Not that I blame you - things aren’t always so great out here -, but I’ll let you in on a secret,” he says, lifting Benjamin up so he can mock-whisper in his ear. “ _We have cake_. Unless your mom eats it all, which she might.”

“Hey!” Tris exclaims, playfully indignant. “I am feeding two people! And until you can do that, you can kindly shut up about my eating habits.”

It almost feels normal, their teasing. It feels like it used to anyway, at least if you don’t look close enough to see the flaws in the perfect little picture they’re presenting. But either way, the mood is better when Tobias leaves than when he arrived, and that’s got to count for something.

He gives her a lingering kiss in farewell, neither one of them wanting to break it despite Benjamin nestled between them. Tobias kisses her lips, her cheeks, the space between her brows while his thumbs slip under the hem of her shirt and caress her hips.

It lasts until Benjamin gives a sharp, hungry wail, reminding them how they got here.

“Go,” Tris says, shooing him out. “ _Someone’s_  hungry, and I want a nap, after.”

Tobias wants to say something else about how Ben is like Tris, and though he bites his tongue it must show in his eyes because Tris huffs and pushes him out the door and slams and locks it behind him.

He’s still laughing to himself when he catches sight of Jason walking down the hall. And he’s got to admit, the guy has some balls for not wilting under the look Tobias gives him.

“She in there?” he asks without preamble.

“She’s busy,” Tobias answers gruffly. “And she will be for a while.”

Jason looks him up and down, clearly appraising before he asks if Tobias is going to stand there all day.

“If I have to,” he says, widening his stance and crossing his arms like he’s settling in.

Jason gives him one more contemptuous look and stalks off. Once Tobias is sure he’s gone he goes back up the Control Room, though he has his misgivings about it. And, truthfully, he spends more time watching the video feed than getting any work done.

But Jason doesn’t come back, at least not immediately. Not until after Tris does her walk-through of the kitchen - Ben strapped to her chest in a sling -, before the dinner rush. She been back in her office for a few minutes when Jason announces himself by tapping on the open door and Tobis knuckles go white where he’s gripping his desk.

More than anything in the moment he wishes he could put a camera in his office. It’s creepy and weird and invasive, but he doesn’t care right now. He knows she has to talk to Jason about work stuff and-

His thoughts cut off right there, because the next thing he sees is Jason stumbling backwards out of her office, doubled over and clutching his face.

Tobias is out of his chair without even thinking about it because all rational thought has left his brain. He thinks, maybe, Zeke calls out to him, but all he hears is the blood pounding in his ears that’s tinting his vision red.

He has no memory of getting downstairs, just that he is, and some part of him is lucid enough to hear Tris threaten Jason with, “If you ever try to stick your tongue down my throat again I will. Cut. It. Off.,” before he’s shouldering past her and hauling Jason to his feet and slamming him against the wall.

Tobias only gets in one good hit before Zeke is cuffing his arms and dragging him back. The split lip and missing tooth he added to the injuries Tris inflicted aren’t nearly enough to satisfy him. He struggles uselessly against Zeke.

“I’m going to report you,” Jason threatens, spitting out his tooth.

“You do that, you little bitch. See what happens,” Zeke says before anyone else can. “Get the fuck out of here. Now. Or I’ll let him finish the job she started.”

“Stay the fuck away from  _my family_ ,” Tobias spits out as Jason limps away, only giving the trio one last baleful look.

“Go back upstairs, Tris,” Tobias demands once Zeke loosens his hold on him.

“You don’t get to talk to me that way,  _Four_ ,” she snaps. “I don’t need you running to my rescue. I handled it.” And then she’s gone in a swirl of blonde hair and vicious eyes and ire.

“You okay?” Zeke asks, his eyes still on the swinging door Jason left through.

“No,” Tobias says shortly.

“Why don’t you go upstairs. I’ll, uh, calm Tris down.”

Tobias doesn’t want to, but if Tris isn’t going to listen to him, well… he’ll just have to take matters into his own hands.

“Fine. Just keep that fucker away from her.”

“Will do,” Zeke says, giving him a salute that turns into a middle finger somewhere along the line.

When he gets back to the Control Room he makes a beeline for the phone on his desk. Tori’s at the Hub today, but she should be in her office, at least. She picks up on the third ring, and after tersely explaining what just happened, Tobias says, “You either fire him, or give Tris her old job back, or I’m going to kill him. Take your pick,” and slams the phone down.


	18. Dany - Three Parts Dead out-take

**Not sure who requested this one, but someone wanted a story about TPD; either Tris and Tobias’ travels or how they found Dany. You get the latter.**

* * *

 

“I am… drunk,” Tobias decides, finally finishing his sentence and pushing Tris into the back of a building. He keeps her there, breathing whiskey onto her neck. She’d mind, except she’s kind of drunk too.

“You’re very drunk.”

“No, I’m  _very drunk_  when I fall down and can’t get up, like some old lady. Right now I’m just regular-drunk.”

“If you say so,” Tris hums.

They make out like the teenagers they are for a while; at least as long as it takes a group of drunks from the bar they just left to spot them and start catcalling.

“We need to get home,” Tobias says, pulling away and glaring in the direction of the hoots and hollers aimed at them.

“Yeah,” Tris says dreamy and breathless.

He slings his arm around her shoulder jauntily, and she does the same to his waist. They stick to the alleyways; it’s the quickest way to their bed, which they’re both eager for. Not that they haven’t caught a couple or two having an ‘amorous adventure’ out in the ope before, but that’s not who they are, no matter how far away removed from Abnegation they may get.

“It’s getting cold,” Tobias comments conversationally.

“Really? You want to talk about the weather?”

“I need the distraction,” he shrugs. “Girls don’t have it so bad, you know. No one can see how, um,  _excited_  you are.”

“Poor, Tobias,” Tris teases, stepping out in front of him and walking backwards, a mockingly tragic expression on her face. “That’s tragic. I’ll have to do my best to never  _excite_  you again.”

“Don’t you dare,” Tobias says, a smile splitting his face as he grabs for her.

Once she’s safely tucked against his side again they keep walking, and Tobias brings up leaving Pittsburgh again. Tris isn’t really opposed to it; the world - _their world_ \- is much bigger than it used to be, and it has to have something better than this dirty, tumbledown town is going to be when the snow starts falling.

“We could go west. We haven’t seen the desert yet.”

“I don’t know,” Tris says slow and contemplative. “It seems like it would be pretty barren, and isn’t that why you want to leave here?”

“If we don’t like it we can always leave,” Tobias reminds her.

Tris is just trying to figure out how to suggest that maybe it’s time to go visit Zeke - a task which would be much easier if she hadn’t had quote so many drinks -, when Tobias stops dead in his tracks, he head whipping around to look at the trash dumpster they just walked past.

“Did you hear that?” he asks, voice barely above a whisper. His whole body is tense, like he’s preparing for a fight, but Tris can’t see any signs of danger, then again Tobias has always been better at recognizing that than she is.

“I didn’t-”

“-Stay here,” he says, interrupting her.

As he steps away her eyes swivel around the apparently empty alley, looking for enemies, muscles strung tight in case she has to defend herself.

“Shit,” Tobias hisses, peering over the top of the dumpster. “C’mere Tris,” he says motioning her over with one hand and reaching into the bin with his other.

She steps carefully up to him, uncertain what she’ll find, what has him acting like this. She hopes it’s not a body, some poor soul dumped unceremoniously with the rest of the refuse.

It is, but not the kind of body she was expecting.

It’s a dog, so black with dirt and dried blood Tris isn’t sure what color is should be. If not for the way it’s trembling - from fear or the cold she’s not sure which - she’d think it’s dead.

“We have to take it home,” Tobias says, decided. Tris isn’t sure that’s safe, but the look on his face tells her it’s not up for argument.

He lifts himself over the edge of the bin so he can scoop the poor creature up, and Tris is shocked by just how awful it looks once it’s safely in his arms, too weak to fight. It’s a large dog, should probably weigh 50 or 60 pounds, but it’s barely half that. Tris thinks she can count every bone on it’s body.

Tobias walks the remaining block to their apartment hastily, like the animal could die if he didn’t get it to their apartment this second. It just might, considering how beat up and malnourished it is.

“Put a couple of towels down in the shower and turn it on. I’ll put it in once it’s warmed up; the cold might be too much for it,” he directs once they’re through the door.

“Okay,” she calls out from the bathroom once she’s done just that, the water warm but not hot against her hands.

Tobias sets the dog on top of the towels, and despite the water raining down on it, it doesn’t try to escape. Immediately little rivers of dirty brown and black start swirling down the drain.

Tobias strips down to his boxers. “She peed on me,” he grimaces, and then immediately defends with, “it was scared. It’s okay. They’re clothes; they can be washed.”

He climbs into the bath, squirting out a palmful of their shampoo before gently working it into the dog’s coat. Tris watches from outside as Tobias washes it, a steady stream of reassure flowing out of his mouth, one damaged creature to another.

Tris almost thinks he’s forgotten she’s there until the dog starts whimpering as Tobias works the soap around a scabbed patch of skin as big as his hand right above her tail. “Can you get that leftover chicken from the fridge, maybe distract her with it so I can clean this?”

“Sure,” Tris croaks. Drunkenly stumbling home feels like something they did in another lifetime what with the turn their night has taken.

Once she retrieves the food she crouches down on the floor by the dogs head and uses her fingers to tear the hunk of chicken breast into bite-sized pieces. She holds it out in offering, but the dog looks at her apprehensively, still too scared to take anything from human hands.

“It’s okay, it’s just chicken,” Tris coaxes. She set the chunk of meat down on the wet shower floor tentatively. It takes a minute, but the dog licks it up. There’s still distrust and disbelief in it’s eyes when it looks back up at her, and it still won’t take the food out of her hand, but every piece she sets down gets eagerly eaten.

And it’s enough of a distraction that Tobias can finish his task. It takes three applications of copious amounts of shampoo before silvery gray hair emerges… and a lot of wounds and scabs and scars.

There’s no hair on her ears, or at least Tris can’t see any under the thick layer of bloody scab coating them. The tips are ragged in places, like chunks of flesh have been completely ripped away. There are open wounds littering her body too, and after Tobias dries her as much as he can he gently covers them in antibiotic ointment.

“That’s all I know how to do,” he says, sounding defeated. “I guess we just keep them clean and hope they don’t get infected. Or aren’t already.”

“Tobias?” Tris asks uncertainly. “What are we going to do with a dog?”

“I don’t know,” he says slowly. “I couldn’t leave her there though. Could you?”

Tris looks down at the pitiful animals in front of her for a long time before says, “No. I don’t think I could either.”

“Let’s just… make her a bed and hope she makes it until morning,” he says wearily.

They use all their spare blankets and towels to construct a nest next to their bed, and once the dog is settled in it they sit on the floor with her. Tobias hunts up some leftover right and forms it into careful, tiny balls that he coaxes the dog to eat the same way Tris did. It’s nearly 3 in the morning when the crawl into bed themselves, though Tris knows Tobias won’t sleep much, if at all.

And she’s right, he doesn’t. He lays on his stomach, one arm slung over the side of the bed so he can pet the dog, to comfort it, to make sure it doesn’t get too hot or too cold; to make sure it keeps breathing, to make sure it sees the next sunrise.

Sometime around down Tris wakes up and rolls over to find him on the floor again, offering it a bowl of milk. “Is she okay?” Tris mumbles sleepily.

“She’s alive,” Tobias says grimly.

When Tris wakes up again around noon there’s a note on the pillow next to her from Tobias telling her he went to go get more food and would be back soon. Tris scoots over to the side of the bed Tobias usually sleeps on and looks over the side. The dog is still there, still cocooned in blankets so that only her head and neck are visible.

Tris reaches out tentatively, still wary of dogs since the aptitude test, but curious too. She caresses the dog the space between the dogs eyes. It looks up at Tris shyly, still unsure, but not aggressive by any definition of the word. She’s startled by the fact that they’re heterochromatic - one blue, one brown.

“I think you’re stuck with us,” she confides.


	19. Wash & Fold (Explicit) - Patterns & Fairytales out-take

**Prompt: jealous, smutty Tobias.**

* * *

 

Tobias doesn’t know why the jealousy hits him hard enough to knock him over. Uriah’s eyes are bright and mischievous as he tells Tris some ridiculous story, his hands waving animatedly. It’s a scene he’s witnessed a hundred times, but for some reason today it makes him feel like a speeding train had plowed into his chest.

It’s not the first time Tobias has wondered if Uriah sees Tris as more than a friend; he vividly remembers the flash of jealousy he felt when Uriah offered up his lap as her chair while they waited to go through their fear simulations. Jealousy was fresh and hot and new then; he’s become well acquainted with it over the years, though it’s rarely been directed at the youngest Pedrad.

Today it is though. Because Uri acting like an idiot is making Tris laugh; loud, deep, belly laughs that leave her hunched over and gasping for air. Tobias can’t remember the last time he made Tris laugh like that; can’t remember if he _ever_  has.

Tobias looks down into his red plastic cup like it’s going to explain his reaction to him, and it sort of does considering the fact it’s almost drained and the last drink wasn’t his first drink. 

His fingers crunch around the cup as they laugh some more and reminds him that Uriah has never made Tris cry. Not like Tobias has. And when he freaked out while she was pregnant with Benjamin, Uriah was the one who she ran to.

And while he’s certain that Tris doesn’t see anything other than the brother she deserved (and the one she has left), Tobias isn’t so sure that Uriah feels the same. Alcohol and fear never mix well, and the more Tobias thinks about it, the more convinced he is that Uri is harboring some secret feelings for Tris.

There could be a hundred reasons why Uriah hasn’t made a move in all the years he’s known Tris; Marlene, grief, the parade of girls he tried to drown it in, Tris’ pregnancy, Tobias himself. It’s the last one that really matters because it’s the one he has control over.

He throws back the last dregs of his drink and tosses the cup away, a plan already half formed in his mind as he makes his way over to them. He’s going to remind Uriah - remind everyone here - that Tris is his. That’s not something he’s felt for the first time either, not with everything that went down with Jason almost a year ago.

Uriah greets him jovially when he slips his arms around Tris from behind, pressing her back against his chest. Tobias’ greeting is more subdued, but that’s mostly because he’s trying to contain the urge to cold-cock the younger man. And to that end, he keeps his attention focused on Tris.

Uriah keeps talking, completely unphased, but Tobias is barely listening. Instead he occupies himself with touching Tris as much as she’ll allow in public. When he kisses her neck, soft and lingering her, “yeah, uh-huh,” to whatever Uri said comes out breathy and distracted. It makes his cock twitch in his pants.

When Christina shows up and distracts Uriah, Tris twists a little in Tobias’ arms. “You need to stop that,” she quietly scolds.

“I’m not doing anything,” Tobias smirks and then kisses her soundly on the mouth, just so everyone can see.

“You’re drunk,” she huffs, though her cheeks are flushed and her breath is coming a lot harder than it should be for just standing still.

“Not even close,” he says and kisses her again. “I just want you.”

“In the middle of a party?” she asks incredulously.

“Well I wasn’t planning on laying you out on the coffee table if that’s what you’re asking. But I’m sure we could find someplace private,” he says suggestively, his hand slipping under the hem of her shirt to trace up her spine.

He can feel the moment Tris gives in to him, the way her body shivers and melts, becoming a little bit heavier under the weight of her desire. “Come on,” he implores, hooking his finger into the belt-loops of her jeans and giving a tug. She stumbles after him, looking guilty already.

“Hey!” Zeke calls out, a shirt eating grin breaking across his face. “Where do you you’re sneaking off to?”

“To get more ice. You’re cooler’s looking a little slushy,” Tobias says like it’s the most normal thing in the world.  

“Just make sure you wrap it up this time!” Zeke hollers. “You don’t need another Baby Surprise 9 months from now!”

Tris looks completely mortified as Tobias flips his best friend the bird and ushers her out the door.

The party has spilled out here too, people looking for a little more privacy than Zeke and Shauna’s crowded apartment affords. Tobias nods to them tersely as he leads Tris down the hall. The next one they turn down is empty and Tobias nearly breaks into a sprint in his haste to get Tris into the communal laundry room at the other end of it.

He’s got a, “get the fuck out,” perched on his tongue for anyone who might be using it, but it’s unnecessary. A couple of the machines rattle and whir, but there’s no one around to stop Tris and Tobias slipping inside and locking the door behind them.

He can sense her hesitancy though. They’ve never fucked anywhere that isn’t their apartment, never had to worry about anyone catching them in the act; their entire history is the exact opposite of this.

“We don’t have to,” he murmurs, though he’s already working on the button and zipper on her jeans as he says so. “Just tell me to and I’ll stop.” He means it, but he knows the chances of her actually saying it are slim to none once he’s got his fingers inside her.

“J-just be… be quick,” she stutters out, eyes already scrunching shut the way they do when she’s slick and wet and ready and he’s teasing her.

Tobias drops to his knees in front of her, tugging her jeans off enough that he can throw her free leg over his shoulder and bury his face between her thighs.

“Oh my God,” she gasps at the first feel of lips and tongue and rough stubble. All it does is encourage Tobias more, and soon enough the only way she’s upright is with his hands bracing her, and she’s got a hand clamped over her mouth in a feeble attempt to muffle the sounds coming out of it.

His face is glistening when he stands upright again.

Tris is still lax and boneless from her release and lets Tobias lift her on top of one of the washers. The edge of it must be digging into her ass painfully but she doesn’t complain, just wraps her legs around him and pulls him close so she can kiss his mouth sloppily as he thrusts inside of her.

She hisses a little when Tobias does cursing whatever asshole propagated the urban myth that women who give birth somehow aren’t tight anymore. But whatever ache exists must only be brief because quickly enough Tris is urging him to move. She keeps kissing him, but drops her hands so she can lift herself a little and meet his thrusts, the two of them working in tandem while her pants wave off one leg like a tattered battle flag.

Tobias isn’t going to last long with her doing  _that_ , and he goes slow relishing the the slick drag of her walls around him every time they move. He wants to make her come again, wants her to gush and clench around him; she does with surprising speed when his thumb slips into the tight space between them to flick at her clit the same way his tongue did a few minutes ago.

He slams into her hard, the heat sizzling down his spine and into her demanding it when he thinks about how her panties will be sticky with their release for the rest of the day, thanking the Gods above for the invention of birth control pills.

Tobias slumps against her, tilting her body back awkwardly across the machine while he catches his breath. “We should do that again,” he teases once he can form words.

“Get dressed,” Tris says, smacking his ass and pushing him off, a smile turning up her lips.

She’s still shaky, has to brace herself against the washer to stay upright as she pulls her pants back on and fixes her clothes. “Ugh… we’re going to smell like sex now.”

“Good. I want everyone to know I fucked you,” Tobias says, fastening his belt.


	20. Breakfast - Patterns & Fairytales out-take

**prompt: Could you do a drabble based on 40 weeks when Ben slips up about how Tobias wanted a girl anyways when they were discussing baby names for Matty. And when Ben asks Tobias if he's in trouble, tobias tells him no, but he might be. Could you write the confrontation between him and tris about that? You know, cause she's cranky and pregnant :)**

* * *

 

By the time Tobias makes it out the kitchen Tris and Benjamin are already hard at work making the batter for their pancakes. Tris measures out each ingredient and then lets Ben dump it into the bowl. He wants to do the mixing himself, but it’s too much for him on his own so Tris helps with that too. 

"Anything I can do?" Tobias offers.

"Nope," Tris says, though there’s a bite to her tone. 

Tobias sits at the kitchen table, waiting. He’s not sure if she’s going to scream or cry - or both -, but he knows she’s going to do something.

Except she doesn’t. She just sets a plate heaped with food in front him and tucks into her own meal while Ben does the same across from her. 

Benjamin is a good buffer because without his constant chatter distracting Tobias from Tris’ terse silence the mood would be a whole lot different. She doesn’t say a single word to him until they’re done when she announces that she’s going shopping with Christina. 

After Tobias clears the plates he follows her into the bedroom braced for whatever shit-storm he’s created.

"Tris…," he tries.

"I can’t talk about this right now," she snaps, barely sparing him a glance as she changes. "Are you going to be okay with Ben for a while?"

"Yeah, no problem," he says, holding his hands up. There are very few things that scare him - four, in fact -, but a pissed off, hormonal Tris could give them a run for their money. 

"Good," she says, grabbing her bag and walking out with surprising grace for someone who’s as pregnant as she is. 

Tobias and Ben hang around the apartment before he decides to hunt up Zeke and Zoey.

"What’s up your ass?" Zeke asks once the kids are suitably occupied. 

"Ben let slip this morning that I wanted a girl."

"Ah… well… you kinda fucked yourself on that one didn’t you? Tris pissed?” Zeke asks, offering him a beer. Tobias waves it away; he’s trying not to drink around Ben.

"What do you think?" Tobias scoffs.

“ **I**  think you’re still lucky to have your balls, but what do I know, right?”

Zeke rolls his eyes at the vintage Four glare Tobias gives him at that. 

"Yeah, that shit doesn’t work on me," he dismisses. "Look, you fucked up; not the first time, not the last time. So you man up, let her scream at you, and try to fix it. It’s not the worst thing you’ve ever done and she still loves you for some reason."

"Thanks."

"I’m just sayin’."

Tobias sighs, kicking his heel into the bottom of the kitchen cabinet he’s leaning against. “Can Ben stay here for a while?”

"Sure, why?"

"I thought I’d clean the apartment, get the laundry done, just make sure things are nice when she comes home."

"Not the worst idea you’ve ever had," Zeke smirks and then waves him out of his apartment. 

Tris and Tobias’ apartment is still pretty clean from their weekend spent indulging her urge to nest, but Tobias cleans it top to bottom again for good measure.

He’s folding a load of towels when Tris startles him.

"Why a girl?" she asks and he whips around to find her leaning in the doorway, studying him. She looks angry, still, but hurt now too.  _Shit_.

"It was when we first found out about Ben. I thought… if he was a girl, I wouldn’t be able to… hurt him. If he looked like you," he admits, banking on honesty being the best way out of this. "It just sort of stuck, after that."

"Does it matter that much?" she asks, her voice wavering. 

“‘Healthy’ and ‘happy’ matter more than ‘boy’ or ‘girl’.”

"Okay."

"Okay?"

"Okay," she reiterates. "It’s not like I wasn’t hoping for another boy."


	21. On The Road - The Happy Ending out-take

**prompt: Can you write a drabble about Tris & Ben being out and getting jumped or attacked and Tobias going ballistic???**

_(I got bored with Tris always being the one in danger so I changed this up a little)_

* * *

 

It all happens so quickly Benjamin isn’t quite sure what’s going on. The first bullet impacting the thick metal sides of the car sounds like a pebble; a sharp  _pting!_  that’s a little louder than some of the others, but not so loud as to cause alarm. He’s not even sure his dad and Amar hear it from where they’re talking in the seats at the front of the car.

But there’s only time enough for those thoughts to pass briefly through Benjamin’s head before the next shot hits, and this one takes out a tire. The adults shout and Ben’s so scared he can’t even scream as the car veers wildly across the pitted, icy road that stretches between Amity and the fence.

Amar struggles to maintain control now that the tires been blown out, and his first instinct isn’t to go faster, it’s to slam to stop. That’s when the assault really starts. It sounds like they’re plunged into a violent hail storm, like chunks of ice as big as golf balls are being hurled angrily at the driver’s side of their SUV. Ben stares, bewildered and terrified, as the glass of his window spiderwebs with each shot that hits it.

“They’re shooting at us,” he exclaims like Tobias and Amar don’t already know that.

“Get down!” his father shouts, twisting awkwardly from his seat to release Ben from the confines of his seatbelt and force him down onto the floor.

Once he’s down the car lurches forward and Ben smacks his head into the metal support of the seat in front of him. It makes him cry out in shock and pain, but the noise is lost amid all the others; the gunfire, of course, whatever Amar is shouting into his radio, and his father yelling at Amar to stop the car and gesturing wildly to the convoy of Amity trucks that are behind them, carrying food to the city.

He’s only vaguely aware of the argument his dad and Amar are having in the seats above him, but he catches the general gist of it, which is that the Amity trucks aren’t armor plated like there’s is, that they can’t leave the people driving them out here on their own until help arrives, which won’t be too long but will still be long enough for the others to end up dead.

“Stay down,” Tobias says in a commanding tone as he clambers over the seats to the trunk space of the SUV. Benjamin hears him flipping open the hard plastic gun cases kept there, peeks up and sees him passing one of the deadly looking firearms to Amar who’s now crouched on the front passenger seat, ready to hop out.

“Are you okay, Ben?” Tobias asks, perched next to the back passenger door ready to do the same.

“Y-yes,” he chokes out.

“Just stay there; don’t sit up until I tell you to, even if the gunfire stops,” he orders. “And  _do not_  get out of this car no matter what unless I tell you to. Do you understand me?”

“Okay,” Benjamin says though the words hurts his throat as it scrapes it’s way up.

Briefly, his father’s hand touches his head, down his neck, to his shoulders. It’s big and warm and safe and strong. In that instant Benjamin feels calm, protected.

And then it’s gone.

And then his father’s gone.

The slamming of the car door blows a gust of wind and grit into his face, but all Ben can think is _come back_. He wants to jump out of the car and cling to his father; wants to hide buried in the safety of his father’s arms.

But he doesn’t, because his father told him to stay there. So he does, crying into the scratchy carpet and wanting to cover his ears so he can’t hear the chaos outside, but needing to hear it all the same. There’s shouting, muffled through the glass, then more gunfire; it’s close and can only be coming Tobias’ and Amar.

The seconds feels like hours, but the bullets being fired at them slow, almost imperceptibly at first, and then more noticeably, both in volume and frequency. It’s what feels like days later that Benjamin hears engines roaring towards them; security forces converging on the scene where they’re pinned down. Some screech to a halt nearby, but still others only slow and then speed off again chasing whoever had been shooting at them.

When the door whips open and Benjamin lifts his head to see who it is he can only sense more than see that it’s his dad, his vision is so blurry. “Come on, Ben,” he says gently, helping him squirm out of the vehicle. He tries to stand up, but his legs give out and it’s only his father catching him that keeps him from hitting the ground.

His father scoops him up with one arm, and his arms and legs lock around him as Tobias carries him to another black SUV. His vision clears enough that he sees the pock-marked remains of the one they had been riding in. And the jewel-bright blood stains littering the ground around the Amity trucks. He vomits pumpkin pie and fried chicken down his father’s back at the sight.

Tobias sits him down in an open car door tosses away his jacket. Someone else hands Benjamin a bottle of water so he can swish and spit the rest of the sick out of his mouth. Once he does the car doors slam shut and then they’re being driving back to town as quickly as is safe on the icy winter roads.

“You’re hurt,” Ben says numbly, glimpsing the ragged tear in his father’s shirt and the wet stain around it, just below his shoulder.

“I’m fine,” Tobias says shortly, pulling him onto his lap. “Where are you hurt?”

“I hit my head.”

Tobias tilts his head back and brushes the bangs from his forehead to find an egg sized lump above his brow.

“Do you still feel sick?” he asks worriedly.

“Not really,” Ben mutters, ashamed he reacted like that. “What happened?”

“I don’t know, yet,” his father admits, pulling him closer.

They breeze through the gate at the fence without even stopping, and it feels like no time at all before they’re pulling up the Pire, medical staff rushing out to meet them. Tobias flatly refuses to use the gurney they’ve wheeled out, and leaves the doctors and nurses to scramble after them as he carries Ben down to the infirmary.

There’s a confusing crush of people once they make it downstairs and the only way Ben will submit to treatment is if he’s allowed to stay with his dad. A very exasperated looking doctor sits them down on one of the beds. He flashes a light in Ben’s eyes and makes him track his finger with his eyes and asks him all sorts of questions before determining that he doesn’t have a concussion, he’s just scared.

Benjamin slumps against his father’s chest feeling even more embarrassed than before. He’s supposed to be Dauntless, be brave, even if he is only 8 and he wasn’t any of those things today, he was just scared. They give him a couple of pills - one for his stomach and one for his head -, and them turn their attention to Tobias.

The wound on his shoulder is really just a graze, but they still have to stitch it up. Tobias has just stripped off his shirt and is letting a nurse clean the wound with a sharp smelling antiseptic when Tris shows up.

“Mom!” Ben calls out to her, jumping off the bed and threading his way through the people between them. Soon enough he’s enveloped in her arms, even if it is a little harder to hug her now that she’s almost six months pregnant.

“Are you okay?” she demands, crying. She drops to her knees and starts checking over every inch of him.

“I’m fine, I’m okay,” he rushes to reassure her. He’s not really sure if she hears him because she doesn’t stop what she doing until she crushes him to her chest and cries harder.

“I was so scared,” she says shakily, petting his head. “You’re really okay?”

“Yeah,” he says clinging to her and burying his face in her neck. “I was scared too,” he admits in a small voice, like he can keep the secret between the two of them. “I got sick I was so scared. There was blood.”

“That’s okay,” she soothes. “It’s normal to get sick like that the first time. When my - when I saw _that_ the first time I got sick too,” she says, stumbling over the words.

“Really?” he asks, pulling away just enough to look at her face.

“Really,” she confirms, wiping the last of her tears and his off their faces.

An orderly helps her stand up again, and Ben takes her hand, ready to lead her over to his dad, but she won’t move; she just stands there staring at him, her face blank for a full minute. Slowly that blankness cracks away and is replaced by more anger than Benjamin’s ever seen from her.

“What the Hell were you thinking!?” she shouts, and it’s so abrupt everyone in the room jumps and looks at her.

“Tris,” Tobias says warningly.

“No! Don’t you ‘Tris’ me,  _Four_! You don’t ever -  _ever_  - get to yell at me for being reckless again,” she says, taking a threatening step towards him.

The same orderly that helped her up, holds her back and despite being pregnant she strains against him.

“Our son was with you!,” she accuses. “He was with you! And I talked to Amar. He told me about you refusing to leave, about you getting out and shooting back. So now, tell me, what the Hell were you thinking!?”

“Ma’am you’re going to have to-” some brave soul says, trying to stop her, but the glare she levels them with makes their mouth snap shut.

“You could have died!  _He_  could have died,” she screams, completely losing whatever control she had as tears stream down her face again.

Benjamin is paralyzed in the no-mans-land between his parents, head whipping between his mother’s anger and his father’s stony silence.

When he looks back again Christina and Uriah are there, flanking Tris, both of holding onto her gently. “C’mon, Tris. Lets go wait outside. You need to calm down,” Christina says coaxingly, touching her belly as a reminder.

“I would never forgive you if something happened to him, Tobias. _Never_ ,” Tris says viciously, and then the last of her anger crumbles away, leaving her sobbing and shaking as Uriah slings an arm around her shoulders and leads her out.

Tobias sighs heavily, his head hanging between his shoulders. He doesn’t even react when the doctor starts sewing his arm up. He swipes at his face hastily and then looks up to find Benjamin still rooted to the spot, watching him.

“C’mere,” he says, waving him over. Once he’s close enough he reaches out and pulls him close enough that he can plant a kiss between his brows.  “Everything will be okay, I promise,” he says quietly. “Go wait with your mom. She needs you right now.”

Benjamin nods and then scurries out the door.

Tris isn’t far away, just at the other end of the hall sitting in one of the chairs pushed up against the wall. Christina is crouched down in front of her, holding on of her hands as she cries, half hunched over in the seat.

As Ben pushes his way between them she reaches out, smoothing his hair down as he crawls in his mother’s lap like he used to do when he was littler because he doesn’t know what else to do, but after the day they’ve had it’s what both of them need.


	22. IV & VI Pt 2 - The Happy Ending out-take

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hopefully a less controversial drabble than yesterday's ;)

**prompt: Could you do a drabble where Ben or Matty learns about roman numbers in school and asks Tobias and Tris what their IV and VI tattoos mean?**

* * *

 

Once a week Benjamin and the other students get a special “Faction lesson”. It’s usually something fun that somehow relates to the function or history of the Faction; last week the Erudite representative taught them about what happens when acids and bases interact by having make baking soda volcanoes and causing them to ‘erupt’ by pouring vinegar into them.

This week though promises to be less entertaining, because this week they have a representative from Candor. The class almost collectively groans at that, even if the lesson only is an hour long. But one prim reprimand from Ms. Black is enough to have them clapping politely when man from Candor strides into their room.

He introduces himself as Aaron, and then dims the lights and flips on their projector. “This is the first newspaper ever created,” he says, motioning to the picture of a stone tablet covered in strange symbols. “It is many thousands of years old, but the people that created it did so for the same reason we still make them today: to inform the people.”

Aaron leaves the slide up as he continues to talk, explaining why it’s so important that people know what’s going on in the government and the world around them; why it’s so important to have  _truthful_  information so that they can make the right choices, and the  _moral obligation_  Candor carries so the public can do just that, and the dire consequences of what can happen if they don’t

He doesn’t belabor the point though because this is supposed to be  _fun_. Since they all know what newspapers are supposed to do now, Aaron hands them worksheets filled with a bunch of questions they have to answer about themselves, truthfully. The trick - the  _fun_  part - is that they have to write their answers with the same strange letters and numbers the ancient Romans used.

Benjamin isn’t sure if that’s exactly fun, but it does require enough concentration that he forgets to be bored for a while. And he finally learns what the symbols tattooed onto his parents wrists mean, though he gains neither illumination nor insight in discovering they mean ‘4’ and ‘6’. Still, the task keeps them occupied for the last hour of class; so much so that they’re all startled by the bell and have to hastily shove their things into their bags.

They all run out of the classroom because it’s a Friday and that’s reason enough to celebrate, but Benjamin is extra excited because Friday’s mean his dad picks him up from school. Sometimes they have to go back to the Pire, to his office there so he can finish working, but either way it’s his one workday where he’s not at the Hub and he always picks Ben up from school no matter what.

And, as expected, he’s waiting for Benjamin in front of the school. He looks much happier now that he doesn’t need a guard all the time, but he does have Matthew with him, which means he’s done working for the day and they get to go home.

“Where’s mom?” he asks, reaching up to give his father a quick hug.

“Abnegation. She’ll be home later,” he answers, taking Ben’s hand in his own and leading them towards home. It’s a quick walk, only two blocks away, but long enough for Benjamin to tell him what he learned in school today.

“Can I ask you something?” Benjamin ventures when they’re walking up the steps to their house. His dad hums in assent as he unlocks the door and lets them inside.

“You and Mom have Roman numerals tattooed on your wrists, right?”

“Yeah.”

“Why? I mean, what do they mean?”

“They’re the number of fears in our fear landscapes; I have four fears, and she has six,” he explains.

“Is that why people call you ‘Four’?”

“Yes.”

“I’ve never heard anyone call Mom, ‘Six’ though,” Ben says, brow furrowing in confusion.

“I do, sometimes,” his father says quietly. If Benjamin didn’t know any better he’d think his dad is blushing.

“So, why do you have her number and she has your number?” he asks, his hands moving back and forth like he’s switching things around.

“Ah… well,” Tobias hesitates, sitting down next to Benjamin on the couch and pushing his cuff up so they can both look at the tattoo. “It was when we got married-”

“I was really young then, right?” Ben interjects.

“Too young to remember being there,” his dad teases, which earns a scowl in return.

“Anyway, you’re supposed to exchange rings when you’re married. But rings can come off; they’re not permanent. Things haven’t always been easy between your mom and I, but we’ve always loved each other, so when she finally said ‘yes’ and we got married it was - it  _is_  - forever.”

Tobias is quiet for a long time, seemingly studying the lines inked into his skin. He looks almost sad, Benjamin thinks. But then he takes a deep breath and seems to emerge from whatever memory he was lost in, looking much more peaceful than he did a moment ago. “No matter what happens I’m her’s and she’s mine. That’s why we have the tattoos,” he finishes.


	23. Where do babies come from? - The Happy Ending out-take

**Prompt: Ben, Matty, Tobias and pregnant Tris all laying in bed taking turns to rub her belly and one oh the kids asks "where do babies come from?"**

* * *

 

The first time Benjamin asked “where do babies come from?” he was 5, and his mother was pregnant with Matthew. His father mumbled something about babies coming from people’s bellies; terrified and completely lost as to how to answer that question.

Benjamin seemed to lose interest in the conversation after that.

And Tobias was thankful he didn’t have to get into the nitty-gritty of pregnancy and childbirth right up until the point Benjamin innocently asked a very rotund food vendor at Navy Pier when  _his_  baby was due.

Even Tris, enraptured as she was by the deep-fried peanut butter and banana sandwich the man had just sold them looked mortified.

“Just women!” his father had said, his voice uncharacteristically shrill, trying to undo the damage his moment of thoughtlessness had caused. That hadn’t been any better because then every woman with a belly became a candidate for pregnancy in their young sons mind.

After that they’d tried the old “babies come from watermelon seeds,” which sent Benjamin into a panic because Zoey ate  _a lot_  of watermelon seeds and “is she gonna have a baby now?”

In the end they smoothed things over with “babies come from mommy’s and daddy’s like us,” and, mercifully, that had seemed to mollify Ben and avoided any more awkward conversations and questions.

At least until Tris gets pregnant with Sophie. And, one day, as they’re all crowded on Tris and Tobias’ bed, Ben and Matty trying to feel their sister as she dances around inside their mother, the question gets asked again.

“They come from Daddy,” Matthew says.

Tris flushes beet red and Tobias has to duck his face to hide his shit-eating grin.

“I know  _that_ ,” Benjamin says in a tone that’s clearly calling his brother stupid. “I mean, how do they get out?”

“Oh, um,” Tobias stutters trying desperately to think of a way to explain giving birth that won’t scar his son for the rest of his life.

“How do  _you_  think they get out?” Tris asks Benjamin.

“I think,” he says slowly, pondering the question. “I think, they come out your belly button.”

“Yeah?” Tris says, bemused.

“Mmhmm… and - and, you have to go to the infirmary so the doctor can open your belly button and take the baby out,” he adds.

“The doctor is a really important part of that, huh?”

“Yep. Because they’re the only ones who can unlock your tummy. I mean, if everyone could do it they’d just be walking around with their tummy’s hanging open,” Benjamin says knowingly.

Tris keeps Benjamin talking for the next twenty minutes about how a baby could be born that way, keeps him talking long enough that he forgets why they’re talking about it in the first place.

Hopefully.


	24. 21 (Explicit) - Patterns & Fairytales out-take

**Prompt: Would you consider writing a one-shot of when Ben was conceived? I know you mention somewhere in 40 Weeks (I think) that they were celebrating his 21st birthday and Tobias pushed her over the edge of the couch. But, I think we would all love to read all the wonderful details. ;)  ~enj412**

* * *

 

Tris and Tobias fall through the door of their apartment. Tris ends up on her ass, giggling, and Tobias trips over her trying to find the light switch and they are  _drunk_. It’s Tobias’ 21st birthday and the only way to celebrate that - according to Zeke - is to get spectacularly drunk.

Tobias disagrees with that assessment, which is why he kicks the door closed, gives up on turning on the lights, and focuses on getting Tris as naked as possible. Also, he woke up to a Happy Birthday blow-job, but that’s really neither here nor there at the moment.

At the moment the moment he can only be devoutly thankful that Christina badgered Tris into wearing a dress, though the zipper seems to be in direct opposition to Tobias’ more prurient interests.

“Fuck it,” he mutters, and yanks the zipper apart, sending tiny metal teeth skittering across the floor.

It makes her laugh harder until his mouth blazes a wet trail from her neck to her breasts to her panties. When he tugs those off they get hung up around her ankles, and they’re still wrapped around one of them when he lifts her hips up and starts eating her out in what’s essentially their foyer.

Her weight is resting on her shoulders and her knees are slung over his hips and it’s not the steadiest position considering how intoxicated they are, but Tris maintains her balance by digging her fingers into his hair and holding him to her center. Tobias is pretty sure she’s ripping out his hair by the roots, but the pain makes his cock throb as much as the taste of her on his tongue does.

“No, no, no, no,” she starts chanting, frantically trying to push him away. “I don’t want to come yet. I want you inside me when I do.”

Tobias groans from deep in his chest, giving her one last lick before he releases her.

“You’ve got a dirty mouth when you’re drunk,” he says affectionately and then kisses her sloppily.

Tris seems to care more about freeing him from the confines of his jeans than whatever he’s whispering wetly into her ear. He lifts his hips up to help her, catching sight of their couch darkly outlined in the dim moonlight.

“C’mon,” he mutters, trapping her hand in his and trying to pull them both to their feet.

“I can’t walk in these,” she sing-songs, putting her foot on his chest and digging in with the lethal looking high-heels Christina forced her into right along with the dress. “Take them off too.”

“No,” he says firmly, “these stay on.”

As predicted she has a hard time keeping herself upright once Tobias peels her off the floor and leads her over to the couch. Her legs and shins will probably be littered with bruises from the coffee table and every other piece of furniture they run into during the trip, but once Tobias has her bent over the back of the couch that’s the last thing on his mind.

His eyes drag from the floor all the way up to her ass and she shivers like he’s touching her. He sinks two fingers inside her, right up to his knuckles, and feels her convulse around him.

“Stop teasing me,” she whines.

The grin he gives her is wolfish and predatory, though she doesn’t see since she’s got her back to him.

Tobias replaces his fingers with his cock and she moans like she’s dying. Even with the heels she’s still a little too short for this, so she pushes up even higher on her toes, leans over the couch, really, and the action adds a teasing amount of pressure against her pelvis.

She wriggles, trying to get prop herself up so it’s right where she wants it. Tobias buries himself inside her, unwilling to break their connection as he grabs her thigh and hoists her leg up onto the back of the couch. Tris is only kept upright by one leg and Tobias’ hands on her hips, but she doesn’t care because with his long, deep thrusts rocking her back and forth, the suede fabric and rolled edge of the couch are rubbing her clit just right she doesn't care about anything but that.

She’s a babbling, incoherent mess when she comes, her body cleaving to his as he goes harder, making the sharp, sticky slap of skin bounce off the walls and windows until it’s a sinful cacophony in his ears, drowning everything else out.

He comes with a strangled cry smothered in skin, leaving behind the impression of his teeth on her shoulder. He slumps against her, the room spinning from the alcohol and orgasm she wrenched out of him. When he sinks to the floor he tries to drag her with him, but she rolls onto the soft seat of the couch.

And she’s still there the next morning when he stumbles to the kitchen sink to throw up. “Never again,” he vows as he rinses the sick down the drain. “I’m never drinking again.”

When he turns around Tris is staring at him blearily from where she landed on the couch. Sometime overnight she kicked the heels off and dragged the blue quilt over her. “Did you remember to use a condom last night?” she rasps.


	25. 4 AM - 40 Weeks out-take

**prompt: a one-shot about when Tris was pregnant with Matty and she was having weird food cravings. Maybe Tobias distracted her with other activities, or went out of his way to get the food?**

~ enj412

* * *

 

What wakes Tobias up is the noise of someone trying to be quiet. It is it’s own brand of loud, always discernable in dead quiet of night. His conscience is used to Tris waking up and moving about at all hours, and though his hand will sweep out through the sheets to confirm that she’s missing - and curl around her when she gets back -, it’s never been cause for alarm.

But this time it’s different because the sounds he’s hearing - the slow scrape of drawers, the shuffle of clothes -, have him sitting up in bed in panic because _she’s leaving_. His brain is at once hyper-alert and sleep muddled, and he can’t make sense of the thoughts his realization causes but he feels the effect sharp in his chest, throbbing up the vein in his neck.

“Where are you going?” he says, startling her as she tries to sneak out of their walk-in closet, fully dressed.

“Oh, um, the dining hall,” she says, still clutching her chest. “I didn’t mean to wake you up.”

“Tris it’s,” he twists around to look at the clock, “4 in the morning. What the hell?”

“I just… really wanted something crunchy. And deep fried. And cheesy. But we don’t have anything,” she says, sniffling a little.

“Hey,” he says softly, tossing the covers away and crossing the room to take her face in his hands and kiss her.

It’s not the first time her food cravings have brought her to tears, and though it seems insane to anyone not pregnant, that’s just how it is.

“I’ll go downstairs. You need to rest, and besides, it’s my job to look after you two,” he says, smoothing his hand over her prominent belly. “Just because you’re doing the real work in this pregnancy doesn’t mean I can’t help, right?”

“Okay,” Tris concedes. If she’s learned anything since Benjamin was born it’s that Tobias needs to feel involved, even if it means losing sleep to her food cravings.

Once she’s settled back under the covers he pulls on a t-shirt, zips a hoodie over it, and digs around for his flip-flops.

“So crunchy, deep-fried, and cheesy. Anything else?” he asks in confirmation.

“Not greasy, just deep-fried,” she says seriously.

“I’ll do my best,” Tobias promises and kisses her between her brows.

When Tris hears front door click closed she settles more comfortably against the pillows. “Your Daddy really loves you, Matthew,” she whispers to the baby inside her. “Even if he doesn’t always think so.”


	26. Tug - The Happy Ending out-take

**Could you do a drabble where Ben and Matty are outside playing with their dog and Tobias comes out to play with them and bonds with the dog?? Thanks!**

* * *

 

Boxer’s - even from a young age - are very energetic dogs. Nigel warned Tobias of that when he asked the Candor leader for a family friendly dog. Tobias had brushed him off with, “I have two very energetic sons; hopefully they’ll all tire each other out.” Nigel had smiled benignly and still recommended twice a day walks.

Predictably, Tobias ignored the advice. At least until the morning after Christmas when they were all woken by the sound of a crash, followed closely by a scared, pained yelp. When the entire family tumbled downstairs they found the Christmas tree laid on it’s side and Bandy hiding under the couch, cringing and crying.

And they could have passed that off as merely curious puppy behavior gone wrong, except the next day, she attacked Matthew’s favourite stuffed animal with the kind of zeal Tobias hoped she would display in protecting their family. As Tris performed emergency surgery on Nugget she gave Tobias the nastiest look.

That week saw a number of fatalities in their house. Matthew’s stuffed animals were in constant danger. As were any socks or underwear or other small pieces of cloth left lying around, because Bandy’s favourite game was stealing them and making whoever chase her around the house to get them back.

She even jumped into the bathtub with Benjamin one night, and before he could stop her took a chunk of bar soap with her when he dumped her - sopping and soapy - onto the bathmat. She tried to chew on power cords too, but like the Christmas tree collapsing on top of her, she quickly learned that they fought back.

The only thing that stopped Tris demanding Tobias return the dog was Benjamin tearfully clutching the poor thing to his chest and wailing that she was a puppy and didn’t know better. And the way Bandy whimpered and panicked at his distress tugged at the few maternal heart-strings not severed by annoyance. It didn’t stop her from demanding Benjamin and Tobias get her trained so that their house wasn’t in complete chaos though.

So they did. They enrolled in a once-weekly ‘puppy preschool’ that Nigel ran in his time off. Tobias really wasn't there except as a means of conveyance, and moral support for Benjamin since he was the one who’s doing the real training, with clickers and squirt bottles and lots and lots of treats.

And they started taking Bandy for walks too; twice a day, just like Nigel said. Tris was especially supportive of that, and even fashioned a little coat for her out of a scarf she knit that just didn’t turn out right, to protect the sleek-coated puppy from the harsh Chicago winter. And after a few days of that Tris decided she liked Bandy, because a sleepy puppy was a well-behaved puppy.

But through all that Tobias didn't really bond with the dog; it was for his son’s, his family, but not really him. He was there to wake Ben up early every morning so they could take her for a walk, and he tried to be there every night so they can do the same after dinner. But it was Ben and Matty, and even Tris eventually, who fed and played with her.

At least until spring finally rolls around and Tris has all the windows and doors thrown open to air the house out after the long winter. He can hear Ben and Matty playing in the backyard, and their joyful shouts and laughs are so much more enticing than the dry report he keeps reading the same page of in the hopes it will finally stick somewhere in his brain.

He tosses it aside and ambles out to the backdoor, planning on just watching his sons enjoying the type of childhood he never had. But Bandy has other ideas. As soon as she catches sight of him she bounds over, a rope toy almost as long as she is flopping in mouth. She drops it at his feet and then looks up at him expectantly, her lips curled up in a doggy smile.

“Throw it for her!” Benjamin cheers, Matthew jumping and clapping next to him for no other reason than his brother is excited.

The rope is slimy with dog spit, but Tobias throws it for her anyway. It cartwheels through space before landing with a thud near the fence. Bandy pounces on it, and bounds back over, shaking the toy so fiercely Tobias is a little worried she’ll knock herself out with it, the knotted ends waving wildly.

But she doesn’t. She drops it at his feet again, and half-crouches on her haunches, ready to take off after it. They do that half a dozen times before Tobias makes a swipe at the rope, anticipating her dropping it. And that’s all the encouragement she needs to back up hastily and bow down on her front legs the way she does when she’s suckering Benjamin into a game of tug o’ war he’s going to lose.

Tobias thinks she doesn’t expect him to be as strong as she is because she keeps pulling and tugging and trying, and he’s solid as a rock, at least for a little while - he doesn’t want her to get discouraged so he lets her ‘win’ and pull him a few steps every now and then. When she realizes she really can’t - that she won’t be doing a victory lap around the yard with the rope waving in her mouth, taunting Ben or Matty or whoever she’s vanquished - she flops down on her side.

“Are you giving up?” Tobias teases, enjoying himself.

If anything she bites it harder.

“Aw, you’re just lazy,” Tobias snickers. “Do you want a cookie?”

At the mention of the magic ‘C’ word she drops the toy and pops back up, their game forgotten with the promise of treats. She follows Tobias back into the house, bouncing the whole way, though when he grabs the bag of dog treats she obediently sits and shakes and lays and leave’s it until Tobias gives her the okay.

“Go on,” he says as she scarfs it down, “you’ve got a couple of kids waiting for you out there.”

She trots back out the door and he washes his hands three times to make sure every speck of slobber is gone, but that night at dinner Matthew and Benjamin aren’t the only ones slipping her table scraps.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> for the record, none of my boxers have every taken out the Christmas tree. My cats however, a little yuletide terrorists who wage a very active jihad against it every. single. year.


	27. Gentle - The Happy Ending out-take

**Probably is a part of THE, but one which the dog meets Sophie. ;D**

* * *

 

“Mom’s bringing the new baby home soon,” Benjamin says, the picture of seriousness. “You’ve gotta be on your best behavior.”

Bandy tilts her head to the side, her ears perked up and forehead crinkled in concentration. She lifts her front leg, pawing at his chest in the iconic ‘boxing’ motion the breed is named after.

“She’s really tiny. And wrinkly. And red,” he explains. “But mostly tiny, so you’ve gotta be careful around her, okay?”

Bandy pushes him down to the floor, pinning him so she can lick his face until he’s happy and laughing again instead of quiet and serious. And by the time he hears Tris and Tobias come through the front door, he is.

They run downstairs, joining Matthew and Christina and Uriah in greeting Tris and Tobias and baby Sophie. Bandy is so excited to see them after three days she starts doing her ‘wiggle-dance’ as Ben calls it; her stub wagging so much her whole butt shakes before she gives up and curls into a semicircle of excitement.

Once they get past the oooing and ahhing over the infant Tris sits down carefully on the couch, Sophie cradled in her arms.

“Gentle,” she cautions the dog who is eagerly nosing at the bundle in her arms.

Benjamin can tell Bandy is trying to do just that, but she’s just so excited by this new person in their midst. She nudges the baby enough to upset her, which Benjamin thinks isn’t hard at all, but Sophie must because she starts crying a little. And, like she does when Ben or Matty are crying, Bandy starts pacing nervous circles, whimpering and whining, pawing and licking at Tris and Tobias so they can fix it.

She rests her head on Tris’ knees once she starts cooing and soothing Sophie, remaining there until the baby is quiet again.

“You better get used to that Bandy,” Tris says ruefully. “She’s going to do it a lot for a while.”

 


	28. Grandma - The Happy Ending out-take

**Evelyn throws a fit that she has never met her grandchildren, but spies Tris taking them to Natalie's grave or memorial.**

* * *

 

When Tori died and Tobias took over her job he inherited her office and her staff. Her top aides were a pair of twins named Lisa and Landon. Who transferred from Erudite. Not that there were any parallels there to her and George. They never fail to creep Tobias out.

They do their jobs well though, so Tobias tries to ignore the creep-factor and just get on with things. At least until he comes to work one morning and Landon sheepishly tells him that he has a visitor waiting in his office. He’s surprised because the twins are usually a brick wall between him and people who would monopolize his time without an appointment. But that’s hint enough for who it could be that has his stomach twisting in knots.

“Evelyn,” he says coolly as he breezes into his office.

She’s standing at his desk like she belongs there, tilting the myriad framed photos ranged across it so that she can look at them. Tobias makes a point of turning them back around so he’s the only one who can see his family.

“You have a beautiful family,” she says, ignoring his slight. “Benjamin looks just like you.”

Tobias doesn’t say anything, though the fact that she went through the trouble of finding out his son's name has him clenching his teeth so hard his jaw aches.

“It’s nice to see you back where you belong,” she adds.

“My wife says the same thing,” Tobias snaps, his composure slipping a bit. “Except I believe her when she says it; she doesn’t want me here to further her own agenda. So, what do you want, Evelyn?”

She folds her hands primly in her lap, giving him a glimpse of the Abnegation woman she once was. “I don’t want anything.”

“If you didn’t want anything you wouldn’t be here.”

Her expression falters and her looks down at her lap, hiding it. “I saw Beatrice at the war memorial yesterday. With your sons. And the baby.”

“My family isn’t up for discussion.”

“They were… so proud, of their names, of being part of Tris’ family because they were so strong and selfless.”

Even after all these years there’s a hint of bitterness in her voice at the mention of any member of the faction that abandoned her. Tobias can’t blame her for that, though.

“And, it made me wonder… Do they even know they have a grandmother who is still alive?” she asks, suddenly looking up at him, her eyes piercing, but heavily shadowed with age and regret.

“It’s never come up,” Tobias mutters, not wanting to have this conversation.

“Of course it hasn’t,” Evelyn scoffs.

“What do you expect?” Tobias demands harshly. “You’re not a part of our family.”

“Because of Marcus. Because of-”

“No,” Tobias snaps, pointing at her accusingly. “Because of the things you did. I gave you a second chance, and you used me. To say nothing of the fact that you’ve never respected Tris, and never will. Do you think I want any of that around my children?”

Evelyn looks at him appraisingly for a moment before slowly, quietly, stands up and walks to the door, realizing this conversation is over. She hesitates there, turning to face him again. “I wish things were different between us,” she says sadly.

“The only person to blame for the way things are between us, is you,” Tobias says with finality. 


	29. Downward Facing Dog - The Happy Ending out-take

**So... I know I asked about this before, (and I will tell you, I don't know why I find this idea so fascinating... I suppose it goes back to why I enjoyed Divergent so much), but I would really love to read a drabble based on Tobias and Tris doing some sort of training, workout routine together now that Sophie is born. The kind of conversations they have... Tobias pushing Tris like he used too to be strong. I don't know if you'd be interested in this, but I thought I would mention it. : ) ~ awesomesarahcriderstuff**

* * *

 

“Why can’t we just hit the treadmills again?” Tobias groans.

“Because I hate running and not going anywhere,” Tris says.

“And swimming laps in a pool is different?”

“Yes, it is. Also, it’s my day to pick our cardio, so get in before I push you in,” Tris says with the sweetest smile ever turning up her lips.

“I can’t swim as good as you,” Tobias points out. He swims with Benjamin occasionally, but keeping up with a kid - even a kid who swims so well Tobias is pretty sure he’s hiding gills somewhere - is different than trying to keep up with Tris.

“And you never will unless you practice more.”

“How long do we have to do this for?” he asks, delaying the inevitable.

“Until you feel like you’re going to drown.”

“So not long then?”

~~xxxx~~

“30… 29… 28… 27… 26… 25…”

Tris’ arm muscles burn in protest as she holds herself in the plank position. Tobias is next to her, doing the same, counting down to encourage her.

“24… 23… 22… 21… 20… 19…”

Her arms start shaking, and she shifts her weight, engaging her abdominal muscles. It helps tremendously.

“18… 17… 16… 15… 14… 13…”

She’s breathing heavy, sweat breaking across her skin. Her arms feel twiggy and weak, even with her other muscles bearing the brunt of the exercise.

“12… 11… 10… 9… 8… 7… 6…”

Tobias is much better at this than she is, but she’s  _not_  going to let him see her fail, so she grits her teeth and goes to her happy place, which more or less consists of imagining Tobias in the plank position on top of her.

“5… 4… 3… 2… 1…,” he exhales.

With the last bit of strength she carefully, slowly lowers herself down to the floor and takes a ten second rest before pushing herself upright as gracefully as she can.

“Ready?” Tobias asks, positioning his feet correctly as Tris does the same.

“Yeah,” she says, still a little breathless.

They do twenty squats and by the time they finish Tris’ thighs are burning just like her arms were a few minutes ago, but it’s a good burn, a deep burn; one that’s satisfying because she can feel herself getting stronger instead of just being made painfully aware of how weak she has gotten over the last year while she was pregnant, and after.

They follow it up with twenty jumping jacks, which Tris thinks are kind of fun in a ridiculous way, but at least they take her mind off the fact that as soon as they finish, they’ll be back on the floor doing more planks.

She tries to console herself that they’re halfway through their workout already, and though she’ll be both tired and sore afterwards, putting this off any longer will just make her more so when she finally does it.

Besides, it’s nice having Tobias next to her. They don’t get to spend much time together free of the kids, and even if it’s only an hour a day, it’s time they wouldn’t otherwise have together.

~~xxxx~~

Tobias leans against the ropes surrounding the boxing ring. His hands are still taped, though his gloves and helmet are off. This is the part of their workout he likes the least, the part where he has to watch Tris fight. From the sidelines. It’s a controlled environment, of course, better than during initiation and one where she isn’t in any real danger, but his need to protect her doesn’t seem to realize that.

Especially when the person she’s fighting hits her squarely in the breast. Tobias isn’t sure if it’s accidental or on purpose, but he doesn’t really care when he sees pain, and then anger register on Tris face and all he can think about is wringing this assholes neck for it.

It doesn’t stop Tris though. She goes on the attack, just like he taught her. She lands a solid punch to the guys face, which, even though the protective pads, is still enough to disorient him. She grabs him by the back of the neck and forces his body to fold down just as she drives her knee up into his stomach.

She smirks, gloating, as he gasps on the floor of the ring.

She doesn’t need Tobias to protect her.

~~xxxx~~

Tobias can’t deny that the Downward Facing Dog makes him feel amazing, stretching all his muscles strung tight by time on the treadmill. He doesn’t move as gracefully through the Sun Salutation vinyasa as Tris does next to him - she’s fluid, focused, strangely serene, even though sweat is dampening her shirt at the exertion -, but he’s not bad at it.

No, the bigger problem is the firestorm of lust swirling around the room. Other than him and Uriah, there are no other men here, aside from the instructor. And pretty much every woman in the room is at least sneaking peeks at the instructor’s very toned ass (and some are so enraptured by it Tobias is sure they are committing it to memory, storing it in whatever the female equivalent of a ‘spank bank’ is).

That was what got Tobias in here in the first place: Tris’ enthusiasm for the workout, which could easily have translated to her enthusiasm for the instructor’s ass, considering his devoted female following. It’s why Uriah is here too, positioned strategically in front of Christina, no matter what he says about yoga being good for his reconstructed knee.

Tobias isn’t quite that insecure (except he is, otherwise he wouldn’t be here), stationed as he is next to Tris, but if he was in front of her he wouldn’t be able to watch her out of the corner of his eye, either. She, at least, isn’t ogling the instructor. Or his ass.


	30. Garters (M) - The Happy Ending out-take

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is sort of "M", but since there's no actual sexy times I don't think it really deserves an "M" rating, you know?

**hi, can you write a drabble in which tris gets sexy for tobias? like getting lingerie or something like that? thanks**

* * *

 

Tris carefully pulls the stocking up and clips it into the garter dangling across the top of her thigh. She twists around in the full length mirror to make sure her seam is straight before drawing the second stocking up her other leg and doing the same.

She’s never been a big fan of pantyhose - just the name is the antithesis of sexy -, but the delicate silk stockings and lacy garter-belt make her feel just that: sexy.

The underwear are next -  _over the garters, not under_ , Christina’s voice chides in her head; this way they’re easier to take off without having to mess about with unclipping the stockings. Her bra is next, and once she’s finished with her undergarments she gives herself one last appraising look in the mirror.

For the first time in a long time she feels like her body is her own again. Her hand smooths down her stomach, across the expanse of stretch marks that litter her hips and thighs. She used to be so self-conscious of them after Benjamin was born, but now they feel like something to be proud of; evidence of the three healthy, happy children she’s brought into the world.

She’s proud too, of her body in other ways. She’s no longer the scrawny sixteen year old she was when she transferred to Dauntless. She has hips now; gentle curves that fill out the hollows Christina used to have to take in, in her dresses. Her breasts are fuller and heavier now too, and though she will never be ‘well endowed’, they’re firm and high - thanks to lifting a lot of weights -  despite nursing three babies. Her legs aren’t any longer than they were then, but they are shapely, her calves arching gracefully to toned thighs and a well defined backside.

If she’s honest, she knows Tobias loves her ass - has spent countless hours kneading and biting and licking it -, but that’s not why she does a couple hundred squats at the gym every week. She does it for herself, so that she can dress herself up in pretty, girly lingerie and be bold and confident; so that she can let Tobias see her, and not hide under the covers, in the dark, while they have sex, ashamed of this or that or the other thing no matter how reverentially he treats her body.

~~xxxx~~

By the time her driver drops her off at the Hub her cheeks are flushed at the thoughts of how this night could go. If the guards standing at the front entrance notice anything different about her - other than the dress and heels, that is - they don’t comment on it; they just check her ID and make her sign in like they always do when she visits Tobias here after business hours.

It’s so late that half the lights are out to conserve energy, and the elevator ride up feels like it takes much longer than usual, but that might just be her perception. The reception desk on the Dauntless floor is empty, but Tris can see lights on in Tobias’ office, can hear voices floating out the open door too.

He’s sitting at the big table in the middle of the room; suit jacket off, sleeves rolled up, hair messy from dragging his fingers through it in frustration. His aides, Lisa and Landon, are with him, all three of their heads bent over the sheets of paper scattered across the table.

Tris taps politely on the door and all three look up at her, startled. “Hey,” Tobias greets, clearly pleased to see her, his harried expression instantly relaxing.

“Surprise,” she smiles.

“Why don’t you guys take an hour and go get some dinner,” Tobias suggests, motioning Tris into the room even as he dismisses his workers.

“The Dining Car is still open,” Tris says, lifting up the bag from the 24-hour restaurant demonstratively.

They murmur goodbyes to Tris as they collect their things and head out. Hopefully for longer than an hour. Tris closes and locks the door behind them.

“You didn’t have to bring me dinner,” Tobias says, even as he clears a place for Tris and himself to eat.

“You say that every time I do this. If you’re not careful I’m going to think you don’t like my surprise visits,” she chides.

“That’s where you’re mistaken,” he says, pulling her flush against his chest and kissing her soundly. “You look nice,” he adds, taking note of her outfit, the parts of it he can see, anyway.

“I had a thing tonight,” Tris dismisses, not ready to spring that part of her plan on him just yet.

The Dining Car does basically what is fancy Dauntless food. It’s good, decadent. A rare treat, just like tonight.

They don’t talk about his job or her’s as they eat the savory wilted spinach salad, dressed in bacon and blue cheese. Tobias asks where the kids are, and how they are, as they eat their main course of steak drenched in sauteed mushrooms and wine sauce, though once she assures him they’re fine and Christina is on babysitting duty tonight they don’t talk about that either.

Tris settles into his lap as she pulls out the chocolate souffle they’re meant to share for their dessert. It’s warm and velvety smooth and kept from being too chocolate-y from the freshly whipped cream that slowly melts across the top of it.

Somehow or other a dollop of it ends up on Tobias fingers. As he leans over, searching the bag on the floor for a napkin, Tris grabs his hand and sucks those fingers into her mouth. His eyes snap up her, wide and wonderous and a little confused.

“I brought you something else, too,” she says, her cheeks blushing furiously, but sounding more bold than she really is, in this moment.

“Yeah?”

She forces herself to hold his gaze as she guides his hand down and under the hem of her dress.

His fingers trace the top of her stockings, the straps of the garters, trying to puzzle out what he’s feeling without looking. As his fingers hook into the silk encasing her leg he can’t seem to resist looking any longer though. 

“ _Damn_ ,” he breathes out, pushing up the hem of her dress just enough so that they can both see what’s underneath.

“They say a man in a suit is to women what a woman in lingerie is to men, and since I get to see you in one all the time, I thought I’d repay the favour,” she whispers, fingers tripping up the buttons of his shirt, promising more.


	31. Stung - The Happy Ending out-take

**Tobias is caught off guard when Matty gets upset about something and only wants him.**

* * *

 

The first clue that something is wrong is the high, pained, shrieking scream coming from the backyard.

The second is the sound of running, and crying, and Tris saying, “Matthew, get back here!” sharply.

Tobias is halfway downstairs by the time Matthew barrels into him, cheeks glazed in tears and a pathetic, choked, “Daddy,” pushing past his lips.

“Hey, what’s wrong?” Tobias asks worriedly, looking for any signs of injury as he lifts him into his arms.

Matthew promptly buries his face in his father’s shoulder, sobbing.

“I think he got stung by a bee,” Tris huffs, very pregnant, and moving very heavily. “But he won’t let me look at it.”

And he doesn’t, again. When Tris tries to pry him away from his hiding spot just enough to see if he’s okay Matthew cries out indignantly and pushes her away.

“Daddy!” he says, angry, looking at his mother with betrayal in his eyes. It’s been happening more and more the bigger Tris gets, but especially since she can’t cuddle him and carry him around like she used to.

“Okay, fine! Let _Daddy_ see then,” she snaps, hurt by her sons rejection.

Tobias carries him into the bathroom and sets him down on the counter, Tris following and hovering in the doorway.

“Let me see, Matty,” Tobias murmurs, hyper-aware of Tris watching him. It makes a nervous sweat break out across his neck. If this was Benjamin, Tobias wouldn’t think anything of it, but Matthew has never wanted him instead of Tris in times of crisis and he worries he’s going to screw up somehow.

Matthew carefully unfolds his arm from where it was tucked against his chest, and sure enough there’s an angry red bump swelling the tender skin of his wrist.

“Okay, you have to hold still,” Tobias cautions before plucking out the stinger. It makes a fresh round of tears spill across Matthew’s cheeks. As soon as it’s out Tobias covers the sting in a layer of baking soda paste. He can tell when it starts taking the pain away by the flow of Matthew’s tears, which slowly ebb away into nothing.

“Better?” Tobias asks a few minutes later.

Matthew nods, his eyes still red.

When Tobias slips an arm around him to lower him to the floor Matthew refuses to let go and he ends up simply carrying the toddler to the couch and holding him until he doesn’t want to be held anymore.

And though he’d never admit it to Tris, it’s nice, for once, to be needed by his youngest son.

 


	32. 10 Years - The Happy Ending out-take

**Could you write a drabble of Tris and Tobias, after Sophie is born, just going out, having a date night, making plans for the future, talking and not being ambassador and leaders and parents, just being the 20 something couple they are. :)**

* * *

 

Tris and Tobias have never been able to agree on what day their anniversary falls upon. There’s the day they first kissed, the day they decided they were each others family, the day they were free to start living their life together; each separate and different, and sometimes literal and sometimes existential, but all important.

There’s the actual day and date they were married too, but that matters less because it was merely a formality, and not when either of them decided they loved or wanted or needed the other.

The year they’ve been together for 10 years they decide to honor all of those days. But the first day… the first day, they decide a trip to Navy Pier is in order.

Their alarm wakes them up at 4 o’clock in the morning, and they slip out of bed, sleepy and clumsy and trying very hard not to wake any of the children because then they’ll never get out the door. They quietly rouse Christina and Uriah who graciously spent the night so they could watch the kids, and Tris and Tobias could sneak out for a little while.

The sun hasn’t come up yet as they ride through the city on Tobias’ motorcycle, Tris wrapped around his back as the wind stings his eyes.

“Are you sure you want to do this?” Tris asks when they park a few blocks away.

“Yes,” Tobias says resolutely, but his stomach is squirming in nervous anticipation.

She still holds his hands as they walk, reassuring him.

“You know we could get arrested for this, now,” Tobias points out as they scale the chain-link fence around the abandoned behemoth of a Ferris Wheel.

“That would be quite the scandal, Councilman Eaton,” Tris teases.

Tobias does his best to ignore his fear - and the storm of rust flakes that flutter over him - as he follows Tris up the creaking ladder to the platform at the center of the wheel.

“How are you doing?” Tris asks when they finally reach their destination, and Tobias presses his body as far away from the edge of the platform as he can.

“I’m okay,” he says shakily. “Come here.”

Tris nestles into his lap, a lot like how she did when he took her through his fear landscape and they were trapped in an ever shrinking box.

“Better?”

“Yeah,” he says, eventually.

“Thank you,” Tris says.

“For what?”

“For bringing me back here.”

“It’s an important place to us.”

“Yes. The site of my first near-death experience,” Tris chuckles. “Very important.”

“Not funny,” Tobias snaps.

“Sorry,” she murmurs, craning her neck around awkwardly to kiss him. “Tell me why it’s important.”

“Mmm… because it was the first time we relied on each other,” he mumbles, kissing her back. “And the first time I realized that I wanted to be with you; that I had to at least try.”

“I thought you decided that after you threw knives at me?”

“No. I acknowledged that I liked you, but I wasn’t going to do anything about it because I was going to leave, among other reasons.”

“I’m glad you changed your mind,” Tris says, leaning her head back against him. “Even then, even just being close to you and not being ‘with you’, it felt like fire; I wanted it too, even if I didn’t know that’s what was making me feel like my bones were melting every time I was near you.”

Tobias gathers her more insistently against him, their arms and legs twined together in impossible knots as the sky begins to lighten heralding the dawn.

“I can’t believe it’s been 10 years,” Tris whispers.

“Me either,” Tobias says, his fingers caressing her hand and his lips pressed against her neck so she can feel his words as well as hear them.

“It feels like another life, when I think about all the things that have happened since then, and no time at all, day-to-day, as we’re living it.”

“I know. If someone told me then all the things we’d experience between then and now, I don’t think I would believe them.”

“What do you think it will be like in another 10 years?” Tris asks as the first golden threads of sunlight spool out along the horizon.

“As long as I get to keep you, I don’t really care.”


	33. Wake Up (Explicit)

**Tris giving Tobias a wake up blowjob**

 

* * *

Tobias doesn’t sleep naked. It’s kind of annoying because Tris has to be so careful and slow and deliberate in removing his clothes if she wants to have any hope of waking him up with the warm, wet suction of her mouth. This morning though, he’s only wearing his boxer-briefs and, well, it would be a sin to pass up an opportunity like this.

Helpfully, Tobias rolls onto his back as she extricates herself from his arms; that makes her job a lot easier, too. Her fingers gently scratch down the thin, coarse hair blazing a trail down the center of his abdomen, leading her right where she wants to be. Her lips follow not long after. And even though he’s asleep she can feel him stiffening already.

And really, she only has to tug a little bit on the fabric covering him, to expose him, or the parts she’s most interested in right now. He moans low, in the back of his throat, his fingers twitching at his side, as her tongue traces the delicate ridge that makes her feel so good when he’s inside her.

She tugs more insistently at the fabric so she can take him fully into her mouth. He groans deeply then, once she’s busy slowly bobbing up and down, and it makes wet; makes her body shiver and clench and  _want_. He’s not as careful with her in these moments, when he’s still mostly asleep, and his fingers pull on her hair more harshly than they otherwise would. That makes her wet too.

Her eyes travel up to meet his gaze, past the cut curves of his muscles, past his heaving chest, right up to his eyes that are still heavy with sleep, but nearly black with lust his pupils are so fat. When their eyes finally lock he groans and twitches in her mouth, a savory, salty taste skittering across her tongue. She loves it, and if the way his eyes roll back in his head he loves it too.

Tobias never lasts long when she wakes him up this way, and it’s only a few minutes later that his hips are jutting up uncontrollably and he’s babbling her name and a string of obscenities and coming down her throat.

Tris starts to kiss a trail up his body, her smile wide and innocent despite the fact she just woke him with her mouth around his cock. Tobias is having none of that.

Without a word he drags her up, forces her panties down, and buries his face between her thighs, ready to start repaying the favor because they both know by the time he makes her come with his tongue he’ll be hard again and the orgasms he gives her when he fucks her after - when she’s wet and swollen and sensitive - are always the best.


	34. Daydreams (M) - Patterns & Fairytales out-take

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this came out more humorous than I intended, but I like it, so whatever...

**Could you do a drabble about how Tris can't stop thinking about Tobias? In like, a smut-ish way? Tobias always talks about how much he needs Tris but Tris usually keeps it under wraps**

* * *

 

Tris loves her job, but dear God, the Annual Assembly can bore her to tears. She doesn’t know how Tobias survived two years on the Council when there is a mind-numbing, excruciating, pointless amount of protocol that only serves to draw out an already complicated process. There has to be a better way of doing things than this.

The Erudite ambassador drones on, reading the proposition his faction is putting before the Council. It’s 20,000 words of dry, technical, legal-eaze. Tris counted. Or, more accurately, her computer did. Either way her ass is still falling asleep she’s been sitting here for so long.

Her eyes scan across the Council ranged in a semi-circle on the dais above her; she’s sure at least half of them are playing Solitaire on their tablets. Tris is trying to resist the temptation to do the same by having only a notepad and pen out, ostensibly to take notes, though it remains blank. Like her mind.

Except not quite. Because her mind keeps trying to wander back to a few nights ago.

To Tobias.

And their bed.

And the screaming baby that put the brakes on her licking his chest like it was covered in chocolate sauce.

Benjamin has impeccable timing.

But in her imagination he stays soundly asleep and before she knows it she’s wrapped up in a particularly vivid daydream that involves Tobias spanking her until she’s dripping wet and then making her come with his fingers.

Not that they’ve ever done that.

But Tris thinks she might like it. She just hasn’t figured out a way to suggest it to Tobias yet because he’s squeamish about hurting her in any way, even if she thinks it will make her come, eventually. And okay, it might be awkward and ridiculous in real life, and they both might end up laughing, but in her imagination it’s just…  _hot_.

So hot that when a chorus of “aye’s” snaps her back to reality her cheeks are flushed and her skin feels feverish and her panties are soaked.

She  _really_  needs to get out of here.


	35. I do - Patterns & Fairytales out-take

**Would you consider writing one about when Tris finally agreed to marry Tobias in the P &F universe and how they decided to get tattoos rather than rings? ~ enj412**

**I would love to know about the wedding Tris & Tobias had when Ben is a toddler like you mentioned once ~ gosh-its-gabikins**

* * *

 

Somehow, Benjamin ends up smearing most of his birthday cake across his face rather then getting it actually in his mouth. His fingers are covered in sticky chocolate frosting, and Tobias doesn’t think he’s ever seen his son look happier. And right when he tilts his head back to smile toothily at his mother - whose lap he’s sitting on - Christina snaps a picture of them, Tris smiling back at Ben adoringly.

That one is definitely going to end up framed, on his desk, he decides.

Tris keeps letting Ben destroy his slice of cake until he gets bored with it and tries to squirm off her lap and paint their apartment walls in chocolate-y handprints. Tobias swoops in then, to prevent total disaster, and though Benjamin squawks indignantly at being washed clean with copious amounts of soap at the kitchen sink, he’s quickly distracted by the small pile of paper-wrapped presents on the coffee table, once pointed at them.

Since it’s only his first birthday Tris has to show him what to do, but once he gets the hang of it there’s a flurry of shredded paper and little boy giggles. The presents themselves seem less interesting to Benjamin than the wrapping itself because once it’s all off Ben throws himself into the pile of paper and rolls around in it, happily making it crinkle noisily.

Later though, once everyone else has left, Tris is able to entice him with the bead maze someone got him. Benjamin sits in her lap, on the floor, carefully moving the chunky wood beads from one end of the wire to the other. Tobias sits across from them, nursing a beer and wondering why he and Tris aren’t married.

It’s not the first time he’s thought about it, but for some reason it hits him particularly hard today. Maybe because of everything that’s happened between them in the year since Ben was born. Or maybe because of everything that happened in the (almost) year she was pregnant with him.

But if Tobias knows anything now it’s that they’re never going to be apart again. Things aren’t perfect between them - and they probably never will be -, but despite Tris’ worry that he’ll leave her again, he’s not going anywhere. And neither is she.

“We should get married,” Tobias blurts out.

Tris’ eye snap to his like a gunshot. And she sits there, staring at him for a long time, her arm still wrapped loosely around Benjamin as he obliviously plays with his new toy.

Tobias swallows thickly, mentally kicking himself because all the time he’s thought about asking Tris to marry him, even before Ben was born, it was never like this.  _That isn’t how you propose to someone you idiot!_ , his conscience chastises.

“Tris, I-,” he starts, pleading, but she cuts him off before he can get any further than that with a sharp, “don’t.”

She doesn’t say anything else until she passes Benjamin off to him so Tobias can give him a bath, and disappears into their bedroom.

“Well, I really fucked that up,” Tobias mutters. Benjamin paws at his face consolingly.

Tris isn’t waiting for them like she usually is afterwards, so that she can kiss Ben goodnight and that does nothing for the nervous knot eating it’s way through Tobias’ stomach.

He puts Benjamin to bed himself and then tries to find the courage to walk into the bedroom he shares with Tris without his knees knocking together in fear. Right now he’d rather jump off the Hancock for real then face whatever’s waiting for him in that room.

The lights are off, but the moon is bright and he can clearly see Tris curled into a ball under their blankets, facing away from him.

“Tris,” he tries, his voice full of a yet-to-be-spoken apology.

“I’m not saying no,” she says tightly. “But I’m not going to marry you because I’m scared. And I don’t want you marrying me to prove a point. So I’m not saying no; I’m just not saying ‘yes’, yet.”

~~xxxx~~

Tobias doesn’t ask Tris to marry him again, and Tris never brings it up, but one day, not too long after he asks, Susan does him a favor and gets him a set of Abnegation wedding bands. He thought it was a good idea at the time, but the longer he thinks about it the less he likes the idea of them.

There are too many bad memories attached to Abnegation wedding bands for him. And really, that’s not who he and Tris are. He thinks about getting Dauntless wedding bands instead. And then - sometime around 4 months after he asked Tris to marry him - having them melted down and recast with Dauntless rings so the black and grey could be braided together. That’s more unique, more ‘them’, but still not right.

He doesn’t know how long he has to figure this puzzle out though. The months have been ticking by, but at some point Tris is going to say yes, and he doesn’t want to fuck anything else up because they’re only going to get married once, and if he didn’t get the proposal right, he’s determined not to get anything else wrong.

It’s not until the following summer though, when Zeke saunters into the control room with Shauna’s name freshly tattooed on his neck and Tobias says, deadpan, “that’s permanent, you know,” and Zeke says, “so is she,” that he gets the idea for wedding tattoos instead of wedding bands.

Because the more he thinks about it, the more right he realizes Zeke is. This thing between him and Tris is permanent, and as much as rings are a symbol of that, they  _aren’t_  permanent. They can be taken off, the bond can be broken. And that’s a good thing, for other people, but not for them.

So when Tris finally says ‘yes’ a month later, he suggests getting tattoos, but she’s the one who suggests they get their numbers, “because we both had to overcome a lot of fears to get here, didn’t we?”

~~xxxx~~

Tobias hasn’t been this nervous since Choosing Day.

And it’s stupid because what does he have to be nervous about?

 _Well, Tris changing her mind, for one thing_ , he thinks and then tries to banish the thought. 

As they wait outside the office of the judge who’s going to marry them he paces back and forth, trying not to tug at his tie, which feels like it’s slowly strangling him. Finally, he just rips it off and shoves it in his pocket.

When the Candor couple ahead of them tumbles out of the judges chambers all pink cheeks and wide smiles and adoration, he feels like he might throw up.

“We’re ready for you now,” the prim looking secretary says, sticking her head out of the room.

Tobias looks to Tris, where she’s waiting, holding on to Benjamin like he’s the only thing keeping her steady, and it makes him feel better, knowing she’s nervous too.

The judges chambers are dim and smell like old books, and as they approach his desk he closes and stacks the file he was scribbling in and stands to greet them.

“Do you have a preference for your vows? Dauntless, perhaps?” he politely asks, taking in their black clothes.

“No, just the, um, standard vows,” Tris says shakily.

“Okay,” he says, reaching for his bible and then briefly explaining what the ceremony entails. He smiles affectionately when Benjamin starts babbling, trying to mimic him just like he does everyone else these days.

“Sorry,” Tris says, apologetic, but he dismisses it with an airy wave of his hand.

“Which of you would like to go first?”

“I would,” Tobias says before Tris can.

“Okay, repeat after me…”

Tobias licks his lips and wills himself to get the words out, strong and firm, but even from the first his throat is raw with emotion, and even though he’s happier then he’s been since the day Ben was born he’s still got tears prickling the corners of his eyes.

“Beatrice… I offer you my solemn vow to be your faithful husband, in sickness and in health, in good times and in bad, and in joy as well as sorrow,” he says, and he has to stop there for a moment, to swallow down the painful lump in his throat because these are  _exactly_  the things he wants to give Tris, forever. 

“I promise to love you, to support you, to honor and respect you; to laugh with you and cry with you, and to cherish you as long as we both shall live,” he finishes.

Benjamin strains towards him from his place in Tris’ arms, worry etching lines in his face. Tobias steps closer to them, and as soon as he’s near enough Benjamin reaches out and pulls him closer. Tobias can’t help thinking it’s oddly symbolic. 

When prompted, Tris repeats the same words, not even trying to stem the trickle of tears slipping down her cheeks. 

“Do you have the rings?” the judge asks.

“We don’t have rings,” Tobias says, barely looking away from Tris and Benjamin to inform the judge.

“Okay, just… take her hand then,” he says, a little bewildered. “Now, repeat after me…”

“I, Tobias, take you, Beatrice, to be my wife, to have and to hold from this day forward until death do us part,” Tobias says, his eyes focused intently on hers, to show the sincerity of his words, if nothing else. 

“Beatrice?” the judge says, turning towards her.

“I, Beatrice, take you, Tobias, to be my husband, to have and to hold from this day forward until death do us part,” she says, smiling despite her tears, just like he is.


	36. Tell Me What You Want (Explicit)

**Prompt: since that wakeup blowjob was so fantastic, I'm going to request you do another one where Tobias wakes up Tris by going down on her**

**Prompt: one where Four has had one too many drinks and get slightly dominant in bed with Tris**

* * *

 

Tris is asleep when Tobias stumbles through the door sometime after midnight. Through the gin and tonic haze he’s surprised to see here there, even though he really shouldn’t be; they’ve been living together for months now.

He locks the door behind him, takes his shoes off, and tries to creep across the room to the fridge as quietly as possible, suddenly parched despite all the drinks he’s had. The cold water does little to cool the flush he’s feeling as his eyes drag up her body. She’s only in one of his t-shirts and a pair of panties and in her sleep she’s kicked the blue quilt away from her legs.

She’s still short and they’re not long, but they go all the way up to the curve of her ass, and that’s really all that matters. His eyes get hung up on the scrap of fabric hiding the spot at the apex of her thighs; the spot where he most wants to be.

If he wasn’t drunk he’d probably think better of it, but all the alcohol mixed with his blood makes him think is  _fuck it_  because he doesn’t want the lingering taste of tonic water to be the flavor he falls asleep with on his tongue.

Once the bottle is empty he loosens his belt and shimmies his jeans to the floor, careful not to let the metal of the buckle make a sound as it drops. His shirt gets pulled off somewhere between where he was and where he’s going.

Tris is a light sleeper - much lighter than he is - and it takes some doing to roll her on her back and slip her underwear off without waking her up, but he does it. She doesn’t wake until he licks through her folds with one long, purposeful stroke; shooting up and looking at him wild-eyed and sleep-muddled for a second before falling back to her elbows and still looking at him confused, but not scared, at least.

Their sex life has always been on her terms. She’s always been the one in control - in deference to her fears -, and he’s been okay with that, but tonight he wants her. On his terms. And he’s just drunk enough to silence the nice, polite,  _Abnegation_  parts of himself and be selfish.

“I’m home,” he grins up at her, lascivious, from the apex of her thighs.

“Mmm… I can see that,” she mumbles between heavy breaths. “Did you have fun?”

“I’d rather be. Right. Here,” he says, flicking his tongue across her clit for emphasis.

“Yeah… me too,” she babbles when he slips a finger inside her.

She writhes and he holds her down by her hips and he’s sure she’s never been quite this wet before.

He fucks her with his mouth languidly, scissoring his fingers through her folds in a way that makes her pant, and as soon as her chest starts heaving like it does when she’s close to coming he pulls away, sucking and biting at the soft skin of her thighs and denying her the one thing she wants more than anything right now.

He’s always wanted to break her, and maybe that’s what this is about because even though he’s got her pinned to the bed, him taking control isn’t about him holding her down and fucking her any way he wants. Not really. It’s about him pushing her to the point where she breaks and begs him to do just that.

So he keeps pushing.

He nips his way up her body to her breasts, stopping there to take the peaked tips of them into his mouth just long enough to make her want more of that too, before inching even further up her body to her neck.

“Roll over,” he commands, biting the words into her skin as he sucks hard enough to leave marks.

He helps her untangle her shirt - his shirt actually, since she’s forever stealing them to sleep in -, and tosses it somewhere on the floor. Before she can roll over like he wanted though he loops an arm around her waist and descends on her breasts again, biting and licking and sucking them into tight, aching buds, just like the one between her thighs.

“Okay. Now you can roll over,” he says smugly once he’s done and her cheeks are rosy red and her eyes are almost black.

He positions a pillow under her hips to keep her propped up, and his fingers trail lightly down her body, so light it makes her shiver, at least until his hand slips between her legs again and she’s shivering for a different reason.

At least until she starts squirming, frustrated.

He presses a kiss between her shoulders to hold her down, mumbling, “tell me what you want, Tris,” before flicking his tongue at the rungs of her spine.

“I want you,” is her muffled response, her face buried in the crook of her arms.

It’s not the first time he’s heard her say that, but that’s not what he wants to hear tonight because even if it’s the truth, it’s not what she wants, not really.

“Okay,” he says, pulling away and grips her hips, lifting her up, urging her forward so her hands are planted on the wall and she’s up on her knees. He holds her hands there with one of his and rests the other on her hip.

“If you want me, you can fuck me, then,” he says wetly against her ear, in challenge. It’s one thing for her to straddle him and bounce up and down on his dick, but they’ve never fucked like this before; up on their knees, his back to her chest, and her held in place.

Tris looks at him over his shoulder, eyes wide and uncertain, but he nods at her almost imperceptibly, reassuring her.

Without the aid of her hands it takes her a minute to wiggle her hips in a way that has him poised at her entrance, and even then it’s she’s so slick and slippery it’s hard to keep there, at first. She still hisses as she sinks down onto him, still feels the stretch she did the first time, but it’s decadent, something to be savored.

She moves uncertainly, up and down, then swiveling her hips, looking for the pace and angle that Tobias seems to always be able to find to make her come. When she finally does she moves too enthusiastically and he slips out. Tris groans in frustration; at the fact that her orgasm eluded her again, at the fact that she has to maneuver Tobias back inside her body, still without the aid of her hands since he still has them pressed against the wall above their pillows.

Tris pauses to blow the hair sticking to her sweaty face away, but it doesn’t budge and it’s just one more thing annoying her, keeping her from coming. If she only had her hands this would be so much easy; just a few quick flicks of her index finger and she could end this, at least for herself. But she doesn’t and Tobias doesn’t seem to be in any hurry to touch her either, even though one of his hands is freely resting on her hip.

Tobias knows she’s frustrated, can tell by the hard, deliberate way her body crashes against his with every thrust of her hips. And it goes against his nature to deny her this, and normally he wouldn’t. Normally he’d slip a hand between her legs and pinch her clit and make her scream, but he wants more than that tonight, so instead, he mouths at her neck and says, “tell me what you want,” again.

“I want to…  _finish_ ,” she finally says, and even though her skin is now covered in a fine sheen of sweat he can feel her skin burn in embarrassment at the admission.

“So do it. Use me to get off.”

“I can’t,” she groans, frustrated and strung out.

“Then, what do you want?” he asks, punctuating each word with a bite to her neck.

“I want you… I want you to…”

“You want me to what?” he pushes.

“You to make me…”

“To make you come?” he offers.

“… Yes.”

He thrusts into her hard at that, jolting her body forward. And again, his hand sliding across her skin until it’s buried between her legs too.

“Like that?”

“Yes,” she moans.

He does it again, and again, harder and faster the more her body tightens around him. It doesn’t take long until he feels her body tightening around him, coaxing the heat sizzling down his spine out of his body and into hers. When she comes her mouth is open, but the only sound is the wet slap of skin-on-skin and his own muffled cry as her walls clench and contract around him.

“That was different,” she says, after, when they’re a shaking, sweaty, pile of limbs on the bed, his fingers brushing her sweaty hair off her face.


	37. Brothers - A Fairytale Christmas out-take

**Prompt: baby Matthew is crying at night and Ben (being the adorable big brother he is) tries to calm him down before Tobias or Tris even makes it to their room.**

**(didn’t follow the prompt exactly w/ this one, but here you go anyway)**

 

* * *

The first night in their new house Benjamin has trouble sleeping. He’s spent a lot of time here, but it’s different, at night, without the sun shining through the windows and the sounds of him and dad turning their house into a home.

Now it’s dark and there are strange noises and no noises at all, sometimes, which is more noticeable than it should be, but he’s grown up in the Pire and is used to the muffled sounds their neighbors make at odd hours. He’s used to too, the way the pipes in their old apartment gurgle, and the light snores of his brother, and the murmured conversations he can hear through the open bathroom door between their room and their parents, and he has none of that, here.

Despite all that he does drift off though, and in the odd moments when he wakes, fitful, Bandy is there, restless like he is because it’s her first night away from whatever she knew before and it makes him feel better knowing that they have each other to cling to in this strange new place.

So when he wakes again, groggy and mostly still asleep, he thinks, at first, it’s her whimpering that does it. But she’s asleep, curled in a little ball on one side of his neck, quiet. He strains his ears and draws the blankets more tightly around them, thinking of nameless, faceless monsters lurking in the dark because even though there are nightlights in his room and the hallway they could still be hiding somewhere in the shadows.

He has a few minutes of terror, of wanting to call out to his parents and not being able to find his voice before he realizes the noise is coming from the room next to his, from his brother, Matthew. Even once he does it takes a few minutes for the fear to recede enough that his slips out from beneath the covers, holding on tight to that brave part of himself that allows him to do so.

Benjamin takes cautious steps across his room, and takes the puppy with him, just in case. He stops at the door and peeks out to make sure the coast is clear (of what, he’s not sure) before he tip-toes into Matty’s room. All he sees is a lump under the blankets, but it’s still whimpering, so he reaches out, tentatively shaking it, whispering his brother’s name. When that doesn’t get any reaction he peels the covers back slowly only to find his brother crying, looking up at him through wet, red-rimmed eyes.

“It’s okay Matty,” he rushes to reassure him. “You don’t have to be scared. I’m here.”

“Mama,” he cries.

Benjamin looks up at the ceiling, where he knows his parents are sleeping. He’s used to both his parents coming in and out of their room at night. Sometimes he even wakes up, groggily, to see his father sitting in the rocking chair seemingly just watching them sleep for no reason at all. And if he’s honest, he wants their parents right now, too, but he thinks he should be braver than that because this is their home now, and there shouldn’t be a reason to be scared here; that’s what his dad always says, anyway.

And really his dad worked so hard making this a place where Ben and Matty could be happy. Benjamin knows it’s important to him, and he doesn’t want to let his father down, not ever. So instead of helping his brother out of bed and creeping upstairs to find their parents and snuggle in their bed, Benjamin pulls the covers back enough to climb in with him.

“Mama’s asleep, Matty,” he soothes. “But I’ll stay with you, okay?”

Bandy cries from the foot of the bed, jumping up and yipping at the indignity of being left on the floor when she’s too little to scabble to the top of the bed. Benjamin leans over and picks her up, gracelessly, and settles her between them.

It’s enough of a distraction that Matthew sniffles away the last of his tears, and eventually, he even smiles a little when Bandy licks his face, her little stub wiggling so forcefully her whole body wiggles with it.

By the time Matthew settles down Benjamin’s eyes are itchy with tiredness and he yawns so big it makes his jaw hurt.

“Go to sleep, Matty,” he mumbles, reaching out to rest his hand on his brother’s chest, just like his mom does when either of them have a nightmare. “The sooner we go back to sleep, the sooner we wake up, and the sooner we wake up the sooner there’s presents.”


	38. Lemon Cake - The Happy Ending out-take

**Prompt: Can you do one where is tobias birthday and Ben or Matty are planning something for him?**

* * *

 

“How come we don’t ever do anything for Dad’s birthday?” Benjamin asks one night as he helps his mother carry the dirty dinner plates to the sink. Normally the washing up is Tobias’ job, but he’s at work so Benjamin is helping his mom do it instead.

“Your father doesn’t like making a big deal of his birthday,” Tris explains, her voice neutral.

“But we always get cake and presents,” Ben points out.

“That’s because you’re little and ‘cake and presents’ is still a big deal to you. When you get older it won’t be,” she teases.

“Will too,” he mutters, cross, because of course he’ll always like cake and presents on his birthday.

They’re both momentarily distracted by Sophie shrieking happily, her little arms waving around trying to catch the bubbles Matthew is blowing to entertain her while she’s in her bouncy chair.

“I want to make Dad a cake this year,” Benjamin says, decided. “His favourite kind of cake.”

~~xxxx~~

Benjamin stations himself at the front window of their house, eagerly waiting for his dad to get home. He tried waiting outside, but his mom called him back into the house; told him it was too cold and too snowy for him to just stand there, waiting. He made his dad promise to come home early, and true to his word to his word the black SUV that takes him to and from the Hub pulls up well before sunset.

Ben’s already bouncing in place when his father walks through the door. “Happy birthday!” he exclaims.

“You already wished me that this morning,” Tobias smiles, ruffling Ben’s hair and then kissing his forehead.

Tris’ greeting and birthday well wishes are more subdued, and then Tobias is kissing her and, ugh. It seems to Benjamin like his parents are always kissing, and really they can do that any old time, so Benjamin bursts out with, “I made you a cake!” interrupting them.

“You did?” Tobias asks, surprised.

“Yep. Your favourite too,” he says, smiling wide and sprinting over to the dining room table, and removes the upside down bowl Tris put over it to protect it, away.

Tobias smiles widely as he walks over, taking in the creamy yellow lemon cake. The sugar glaze doesn’t completely hide the fact that it didn’t come out of the bundt pan quite right, but few crumbled edges are nothing compared to the fact that his son took the time and care and effort to make this for him.

“Thank you, Ben,” Tobias says, reaching out to hug him.

They pull apart when they hear the strike of a match as Tris lights the candles stuck in the top. Much to Tobias’ chargin, they make Tobias sit down, and sing him Happy Birthday, even though Matthew doesn’t really know the words and Sophie is too little to talk, let alone sing (though she does seem fascinated with the candles).

“Did you make a wish?” Ben asks eagerly once his father blows all the candles out.

“Nope,” he says lightly, “I have everything I want.”


	39. Nightmares - The Happy Ending out-take

**Prompt: Ben turns to Tobias for comfort after something upsets him. (could be a nightmare, school, whatever you like :) ).**

 

* * *

Tris fussily walks around the boys playroom, picking up the toys scattered randomly about and tossing them into the toy chest against the wall haphazardly. As she bends over bends over to scrub at the chalkboard table one more time Tobias captures her hand in his.

“Go to bed, Tris,” he says imploringly, kissing her knuckles.

She looks pensively down the darkened hallway towards Ben and Matty’s rooms.

“I’ll stay right here, just in case,” he assures her.

“Okay,” she finally murmurs, letting him kiss her lips before going upstairs.

He hears their shower turn on, on the floor above them, and starts flipping through messages on his tablet. His inbox has been blowing up ever since they were attacked coming back from Amity, and it feels like he can never get ahead of it.

Still, that’s not where his mind is, and he finds himself repeatedly staring down the hallway too, waiting. It’s the first night Benjamin has gone without the Amity sleep daught that ensures deep, dreamless sleep, and even though he’s less nervous during his waking hours, Tobias knows his sleeping ones will probably be troubled.

So, he waits. Vaguely, he’s aware of the sounds of Tris getting out of the shower and then, presumably, going to bed. He’s aware too of the occasional faint chime of another message hitting his inbox, but mostly his eyes drift around the room and he’s lost to his thoughts.

It’s not until later, when he’s almost drifting off to sleep himself, that he hears Benjamin scream. And that’s exactly what it is: a scream. There’s no lead-up to it, just the noise of fear shattering the quiet night.

Tobias is up in an instant, striding out of the playroom and into Benjamin’s room, flipping on the light as he does so, since monsters hide easier in the dark.

“It’s okay,” he says, immediately swooping in to wrap Benjamin protectively in his arms where he’s sitting up, wide-eyed and terrified in bed.

Benjamin doesn’t get a word out before he starts sobbing into his father’s chest.

Tobias holds him tightly, like that’s enough to protect him from whatever haunts him; from everything. His hand travels in a soothing like up and down his son’s small, narrow back, Bandy licking every part of him she can reach too, trying to make better whatever is wrong with her boy.

When he finally quiets Tobias asks him what his nightmare was about.

“You,” he says tremulously. “Getting… h-hurt.”

“I’m right here,” Tobias soothes. “And we’re both safe.”

Tobias never wanted this for his children; never wanted this for anyone, actually. He’s seen the true cost of war because it’s not dead bodies, it’s the people left living with the memories.

“Don’t leave,” Benjamin says, like he expects his father to do just that now that he’s not crying anymore.

“I wasn’t,” Tobias says and then lifts him away from the nest of blankets as he stands up. “C’mon, you can sleep with me and mom.”

He can feel his son’s relief at the words.

Benjamin legs wrap around Tobias, and he allows himself to be carried like he’s a much younger child, and tonight, at least, he is.

Tris is sitting up in bed, waiting for them, her hands knotted nervously into duvet. As soon as Ben and Tobias are close enough though she reaches out for him. With a kiss to his forehead he deposits him in his mother’s arms, and then climbs into bed himself.

He has to fight the dog for his share of the blankets since she’s jumped up on the bed too, but as soon as he’s settled Benjamin rolls into his arms, Tris taking over the job of rubbing his back soothingly. They share a worried look over him before Tris turns off the bedside lamp so the only illumination comes from the light shining from the bathroom.

Tobias doesn’t really know what to say to make this better, not anything that isn’t hollow and ultimately meaningless anyway. He wishes, more than anything, that words alone could fix this, but he knows they won’t. So instead, he holds his sons and promises him that he’ll fight off his nightmares if they come back.

 


	40. Christina x Uriah - The Happy Ending out-take

**Ah I'd really love to read ever Uriah Zoe Drabble or Uriah Christina. Was he thinking about Christina before bombing? What had changed exactly?**

**~ a-catgirl-universe**

* * *

 

The first person Uriah sees when he wakes up - groggy from the anesthesia and pain medication - isn’t Christina, it’s the nurse. The second, shortly after, is the doctor. The third and fourth are Amar and Tris, who looks as bad as he feels. Later, he wakes up to find his brother there, and deja vu washes over him so forcefully he feels like he’d lose his balance if he wasn’t already laying down. It’s a scene right out of his time at the Bureau. Luck seems to still be on his side though; he’s still alive.

Christina is there the next day though, perched on a chair by his bed, her forehead crinkled in worry as she watches him.

“I’m fine,” he groans, already grabbing for the little clicker that will release more morphine into his drip.

“No, you’re not.”

“No, I guess I’m not,” he concedes.

Christina’s hand slips into his, warm and comforting. “How do you feel?”

“Like I got my leg blown off.”

“You know that’s not actually true,” she smirks. “They just had to put Humpty-Dumpty back together again with a lot of screws and plates, and give him a new knee.”

“Well, when you say it like that, it doesn’t sound so bad,” Uriah jokes, already feeling the drugs pulling him back under.

“Go back to sleep,” she soothes, the fingers of her free hand brushing his cheek comfortingly.

 

* * *

 “You’re here a lot, you know,” Uriah points out a few days later, still heavily drugged, but able to stay awake longer than a few minutes at a time.

“No point going home,” she shrugs. “At least this way I get to see Michael a little too, and if I was home I’d just be worrying about you and him and everybody else anyway.”

“You don’t have to worry about me.”

“I know, but I do.”

 

* * *

 “You should go home, get some real sleep.”

Michael’s voice floats into Uriah’s dreams, invading them, coaxing him back to consciousness.

“I’m fine here, really,” is Christina’s whispered reply. Uriah hears her shift around on the little couch built into the wall that’s just big enough to be a narrow bed.

“You don’t have to look after him,” Michael quietly grouses. “He has his family for that.”

“I’m his family too, and he’s mine,” she snaps back, ending their argument.

Michael has never been Uriah’s biggest fan, and no matter how much of an effort he’s made to be nice and respect their friendship there’s always been an undercurrent of jealousy there; he’s too aware of the fact that Christina and Uriah were sleeping together for months after the war.

And Uriah might be a little jealous too, but it’s mostly due to the fact that Michael thinks their closeness is ‘inappropriate’.

Not that the sex wasn’t the best of his life, if he’s honest, but being with Christina - having an actual relationship with her - just wasn’t in the cards for them. At least, they’re not ‘soul mates’ in that way. In every other way, maybe, but not that way.

 

* * *

Uriah cocks an eyebrow at Christina when she rolls the empty wheelchair into his room.

“What are you doing with that?” he asks suspiciously.

“Liberating you,” she deadpans, putting on the brakes and kicking up the footguards so he can ease into it without it rolling out from under him.

She tosses him a bag full of clothes, and he levels her with a sarcastic, “cute,” when he pulls out a pair of pajama pants that have had one leg cut off at the thigh to accommodate his cast.

“Do you need help getting dressed?”

There’s a part of him that wants to say no, and a part that wants to say yes, and it’s the latter that wins, but only because he actually is going to need the help if he wants to change without re-breaking the leg the surgeons just had to nail back together.

He tries his hardest not to look down the front of her shirt as she helps him out the shirt-like robe the hospital put him in. There are times - like now - where he’s hit hard by the memories of their former closeness. He’s never asked her if she has the same problem though, and keeps his mouth shut this time too.

 

* * *

Once he’s home Christina is still a constant presence. His brother is there, Shauna and Hana too. A nurse comes up from the infirmary a couple times a day as well, but Christina is the one who makes sure he’s eating and entertained and his apartment doesn’t turn into a trash pile since he can’t really move around to clean up.

It’s what she does, he knows; she did the same thing when Tris was pregnant with Benjamin and Tobias was being Four (which is really just code for ‘asshole’ in Uriah’s head… and everyone else’s for that matter). He tries not to read too much into it, even when she kisses his cheek in what should be a sisterly way every night before she goes home.

To her boyfriend.

Uriah spends a lot of time reminding himself she’s off limits, that they’ve tried this before and it was disastrous, a miracle that they were even able to salvage their friendship.

 

* * *

“Is Michael still working a lot?” he asks as he hobbles down the hallway outside his apartment. They changed his cast a few days ago to a less restrictive one, and though he’s still not supposed to use his injured leg, he is supposed to walk around for ‘physical therapy’.

“Oh, um, not really,” Christina says evasively and it’s a huge red flag because her deepest nature is still Candor.

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

She chews on her lip, the hand not looped around elbow coming up to her mouth to make it easier. It’s a long time before she answers.

“His schedule is back to normal… he’s just,” she cuts off abruptly, fixing him with a questioning gaze. “If I tell you something can you not be a jerk about it?”

“I don’t know,” he says honestly since he thinks one of them should be at least.  

“He’s not very happy with me right now?”

“Why?”

“According to him I’m his girlfriend, not your’s, and I shouldn’t be devoting as much time to you as I have been.”

Uriah’s blood boils at the accusation.

Before he can do something stupidly chivalrous like hobble down to the infirmary and cold-cock Michael, Christina stops him with, “He doesn’t understand, what it’s like between me and you and Tris. He doesn’t understand how close we are, being the only ones left.”

It banishes his anger in a flood of icy cold, supplants it with guilt because clearly whatever… stirrings… he’s feeling, she isn’t. She’s here because she’s his friend.

He repeats that over and over again, laying in bed that night, staring at the ceiling above his bed.

 

* * *

Because Uriah is typically Dauntless and stubborn and male, he overdoes his physical therapy once they start working on his injured leg and lands himself in bed, sore and swollen, for a few days. There isn’t much to do other than rest and ice it and hope the inflammation goes away.

“What did you do with Marlene’s picture?” Christina asks as she brings him a tray with their dinner. She puts it down on the space between them and then carefully crawls onto the bed herself.

“Oh, it’s in the drawer,” Uriah says uncertainly. He doesn’t know how to explain to her the how’s and why’s of why that is, doesn’t know how to tell her that for the first time it feels like he’s cheating on someone he loves with someone… he doesn’t know what.

 

* * *

They have a party for him when he’s finally free of the cast. His leg isn’t completely healed yet, and he still has to be careful about it, but it’s something good to celebrate and there hasn’t been a lot of that lately.

After everyone leaves he helps Christina clean up despite her protestations. As he brings more empty glasses to the sink where she’s rinsing out beer bottles before chucking them into a paper bag for recycling his hand grazes across the small of her back. She startles and looks at him, and all the things he’s been ignoring and dismissing hang heavy between them.

He shouldn’t kiss her. Uriah knows he shouldn’t. _He absolutely, unequivocally knows he should not kiss Christina_. But then her lips part to say something and she never gets the chance to because his lips are there stopping her words, and it doesn’t feel like there’s anytime at all before her surprise gives way to enthusiasm and she’s kissing him back.

It’s been a long time - years - since he kissed her the last time, but his body still remembers and his brain does too. Not that it’s not different, because it is. There’s the comfort of familiarity mixed with the illicitness of the act, after all. She doesn’t pull away until his hand drifts down to her ass just like it used to.

He doesn’t try to stop her when she pulls away hastily, babbling something about needing to leave.

 

* * *

Two days later and Uriah crawling out of his skin. He hasn’t seen Christina at all, and he doesn’t just suspect she’s avoiding him, he knows it.

Just like he knew he shouldn’t have been kissing her in the first place.

To spare himself another sleepless night spent staring at his ceiling he decides to talk to someone, even if he can’t talk to her right now. He’d go to Tris, but he suspects that’s where Christina went and he doesn’t want to put her in the middle of this anymore than she is, so he he goes to his brother instead.

His response when he explains what happened is, “well, the balls in her court now, isn’t it?”

“Not helping,” Uriah snaps.

Zeke shrugs, unaffected. “Okay, so tell me why it didn’t work out before, after the war.”

“I don’t know,” he says slowly, picking at the warped paper label on his beer. “I think… there were too many ghosts between us, you know? Marlene and Will, we were still too much in love with them.”

“And now there’s just Michael,” Zeke points out.

“I don’t really give a shit about him,” Uriah says, uncharacteristically harsh.

“Does she?” Zeke asks archly.

“She wouldn’t have kissed me back the way she did, if she did.”

“You sure about that?”

“Yes,” he says flatly, giving his brother a look.

“Okay,” he concedes. “So what now?”

“If I knew that I wouldn’t be here, would I?”

“I don’t know,” Zeke says contemplatively. “It sounds to me like you’re just looking for someone to give you permission, and only she can do that.”

 

* * *

No matter what Uriah is doing over the next week he finds himself lost in his head, his thoughts constantly pulled back to Christina; wondering what that kiss meant to her, to him, what they’re going to do now; if she wants him, if she loves him, if he loves her.

He’s never loved anyone but Marlene, and he still does, but he wonders if he’s in love with the idea of her; in love with the fictional fantasy future they could have had if she hadn’t died.

The questions swirl around in his head, circling back on each other before they’re interrupted by a cannonade of fresh ones. Every single one of them makes him doubt himself and reality because there are about a million things it could have meant he can rationalize every single one of them so that they don’t mean anything at the end of the day.

Indecision mires him, keeps him from acting, and it takes him a long time to realize that’s easier than acting because inaction is better than finding out she thinks it’s a mistake. Inaction lets him keep the hope that it wasn’t, alive.  

 

* * *

The metallic clang of the kettle being set on the stove would wake Uriah up if he was asleep, which he wasn’t. It feels like a long time since he truly slept. He limps out to the kitchen, and is so dazed by being confronted with Christina rummaging around his kitchen all he can do is stare at her dumbly when she says, “you moved the tea,” accusingly.

He just stands there, mouth hanging open, catching flies, as she fidgets with the hem of her shirt, looking more flustered and nervous than he thinks he’s ever seen her. Still, she’s the one who speaks first.

“I broke up with Michael,” she says quietly, her eyes on the floor.

It takes Uriah a long time to ask why in the breathless sort of way that clearly conveys the answer he’s hoping for.

Christina shuffles across the kitchen, her steps halting, until she’s standing in front of him. Her arms loop around his neck hesitantly, just the same way she pulls him down and slants her mouth over his.

“Because I think I might be in love with you,” she says when she pulls away, resting her forehead against his.

“I think I might be in love with you too,” he says, smiling a little as his arms circling her waist.


	41. The Day Before - into the blood we sink and burn out-take

**Would you consider doing a drabble from the into the blood we sink and burn universe? I do not expect a sequel. I would just love to read about their conservations after the first time they had sex, or even a more detailed scene describing the first time they kissed, or what sort of things they did when they were just spending time together (outside of the obvious). I just love that story so much.**

**~ enj412**

* * *

 

By the time Tris gets to the old warehouse Tobias calls home her teeth are nearly chattering from the bitter cold and biting wind that the alley just seems to funnel and make worse. The heavy steel fire door slams shut with a deafening echo because of it, and Tris cringes, sure everyone in a mile wide radius has heard it, except, apparently, Tobias who is sound asleep when she finds him.

It’s been happening more and more, him sleeping during the day. Tris doesn’t know what to make of it; the one time she asked why he wasn’t sleeping at night he had said he couldn’t, but his tone had said he shouldn’t and all that did was confuse her even more.

Either way she kicks off her shoes and strips her jacket away before crawling into the nest of blankets he’s tucked into. Tobias’ arms reach for her automatically, and she burrows against his chest, still shivering.

“Are you okay?” he mumbles, lifting a leg up so one of her’s can slip between, braiding them together more closely.

“Cold,” she says, pressing the tip of her nose against the hollow at the base of his throat and making him his from the chill too, now.

“I can think of a way to warm you up,” he quips and she can just hear the sleepy, stupid grin in his voice that must be on his face.

“Don’t be disgusting,” she snipes, pushing against his chest only to have him hold her harder.

“I just meant I could make you some tea, or maybe build the fire up a little,” he says innocently. There’s an old metal drum in his little makeshift flat, a flue reaching up and disappearing into the ceiling, but despite the fire crackling lowly inside the room is chilly.  

“Someone’s funny today,” she tries to grouse, but amused and amusing Tobias is a rare Tobias and she can’t quite will herself to her usual levels of sarcasm in the face of that.

The humor is gone as quickly as it comes though when he asks her how long she has.

“All day,” she answers quietly since this is almost always a point of contention between them.

She doesn’t tell him that she’s supposed to be taking this day to reflect before she’s initiated into the faction tomorrow. She doesn’t tell him either that she lied to Mrs. Heath and told her she’d much rather be out distributed food to the needy. It made the old woman happy, and proud, and Tris feels guilty about that, but today of all days she wanted Tobias.

“You can sleep,” she adds, settling more comfortably in his arms. “I’ll still be here when you wake up.”

That seems to be all the permission Tobias needs to let himself drift off, and though Tris doesn’t expect to join him it’s hard not to once she’s warm and drowsy.

When she wakes up, groggy and a little disoriented, Tobias is trying to crawl over her without disturbing her, not that it works. She groans and rolls over and tries to keep his body heat trapped in the blankets around her as she watches him pick his way across the cold floor to the burn barrel.

“I brought food,” she says, directing his attention to the cardboard box next to her discarded bag. He smiles at her warmly when he rummages through it and finds something other than bread and canned goods.

She expects her, “you can cook it,” to wipe the smile off his face, but it doesn’t, instead he reaches for a knife to slice away the plastic packaging around the chicken breasts that are mostly defrosted now. He dumps them into the cast iron pan on top of the barrel, and soon the sound of sizzling and the smell of frying meat invades their little space.

There are carrots and potatoes that get cut up and added to the pan too, and though it’s all unseasoned and plain, they devour it.

“If I knew you were so hungry I would have brought more,” Tris comments as they eat.

“It tastes good,” Tobias shrugs, reminding her that even though he dresses in black now, he didn’t always.

“Do you ever wish you stayed?” she asks cautiously. “If things were different.”

“Are you asking for me, or for you?” he returns, giving her a penetrating look.

“I don’t know,” she answers honestly because the truth is they both should have ended up in the other’s faction, but the closer she gets to her own initiation the more she wishes he had stayed in Abnegation, despite Marcus. Things would be so much better for her if he had, she thinks, though it makes her feel selfish.

“It doesn’t matter ‘if things were different’. They aren’t. And thinking about what could have been doesn’t change anything either.”

“But if Marcus was gone-,” she starts before she can stop herself.

“He’s not,” Tobias snaps harshly. “And he never will be, because if I learned anything from my mother ‘dying’ it was that the faction would sacrifice anyone to keep their leader.”

Tris agrees - she said as much to her mother the day Natalie confronted her -, but this isn’t the first time they’ve had this particular conversation and it always ends the same way: with them both angry and bitter, and even though it’s not directed at each other, they both seem to come away hurt like it is.

They finish their meal in tense silence, and Tris can’t help jumping a little when Tobias slams an abused looking kettle on the barrel in place of the pan, heating water for their tea, she presumes.

“I’m sick of him shitting all over everything good,” he mutters more to himself than to her, but when he looks at her again his eyes are clear of the shroud of they had been carrying since their conversation started.

His kiss is full of silent apologies and once it’s over she has a hard time remembering what got them so riled up in the first place. They sip on cups of mint tea, and eventually cocoon themselves in the blankets once again, the fire never really enough to keep them warm in such a drafty old building.

Tobias’ fingers card through her hair as she rests against his chest. Normally by now they’d be halfway undressed, at least, but they don’t do that today. So she chews on her lip and he caresses her chastely and they both try ignore the fact that they made mistakes. 


	42. Want (explicit) - Patterns & Fairytales out-take

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I combined several prompts for this.

**Will you do a drabble of Tris seeing Tobias masterbating and it leads to more?**

**Can you do a prompt from the 1st time they had sex after Ben was born? I know you explained that they had a fight one night about her not trusting him and he leaving if she got pregnant again, I would like to know how they got it back together**

**idk if you're still taking prompts but i was looking through your list and i noticed that most of them were focused around daddy tobias! and don't get me wrong i love that, but maybe u could write one with mommy tris. like maybe when matty's little and hogging all tris' attention, ben gets upset bc he needs his mom's help with school since tobias is at work. idk i just think it would be cute to have mommy tris**

 

* * *

In the months since Benjamin was born Tris has developed something of a sixth sense when it comes to her son. She knows before he does when he’s going to wake, when he’s going to be hungry, when he’s going to need her. She’d think she was just picking up on patterns if not for the fact that the she could wake up out of dead sleep to a silent house and five minutes later Ben would start whimpering.

So when she gets that feeling early one morning, she doesn’t think about it as she stumbles sleepily out of bed and into the steamy bathroom on her way to Ben’s room. The warm, fragrant fog beading down the mirror and swirling through the air makes her think of sticky summer days, and through the haze it takes her a minute to realize that Tobias is doing more than washing himself in the shower.

He moans, low and throaty and exactly like she remembers, and she’s stuck, deer-in-the-headlights because really all he has to do is look to his left and he’ll see her statue still and gawking at him in the mirror. Not that the knowledge she’s about to get caught does anything to get her moving.

She can tell the moment he comes, even if the rushing of the water steals away whatever he says when he does. A bare moment later Benjamin’s needy wail strikes through everything else and Tobias’ eyes pop open and see her. He looks as horrified as she feels as she scurries past the glass door of the shower and, against her better judgement, meets his gaze for a fleeting second.

Benjamin is standing up, holding onto the side of his crib, when Tris bursts through the door. His cheeks are pink from the force of his crying, but as soon as he sees her he starts to settle. “Look at you, standing up on your own,” she tries to coo though it comes out as more of a rasp.

She carries him into the kitchen, heats a bottle, and settles at the table. She can hear Tobias moving around the bathroom and then their bedroom and it makes her stomach squirm unpleasantly because she doesn’t want to deal with whatever she just walked on.

When he sheepishly walks into the room he says her name like an apology and she completely ignores it, instead telling him, rushed and slightly hysterical, not to expect her home until late because she has to make her rounds to the other factions today. Before he can try again, she’s gone, carrying Ben back to his room hurriedly so that he can sleep for a few more hours and she can take a shower and get ready.

But when she swings the shower door open all it does is remind her of what she’s trying to avoid. She takes a bath instead.

 

~~xxxx~~

 

There are very few things Benjamin likes more than riding on the trains. Tris is sure to put him facing out in his carrier when they have to ride them so he can see the city whipping by. His arms and legs jump and jitter, his happy babbles and shrieks ricocheting around the metal insides of the car.

As she walks from their stop to Candor his head is constantly moving, taking in the birds fluttering overhead and the leaves rustling in the breeze as much as the people they pass as they walk. He’s always happy when she takes him on these excursions with her. It makes her happy too because she still sometimes doesn’t know how she could stand being away from him, just like she felt right after he was born. School, when he’s big enough, is going to be interesting, she thinks wryly.

She goes through the motions with the Candor ambassador, her mind, despite her best efforts, flitting back to Tobias and this morning no matter how hard she tries to focus on the task right in front of her. And it’s still there when they break for lunch and Tris decides that instead of eating in the Candor cafeteria she’s going to take Benjamin to a nearby park. He’s been reliably quiet and patient all morning, strapped to her chest, but she knows as soon as she sets him down he’ll crawl around like crazy, expending all the energy he’s saved up.

Outside it’s a perfect day; large, fluffy clouds lazily traversing the sky, casting the verdant expanse of the park in an ever changing landscape of light and dark. Predictably, when Tris sets Benjamin down on the grass his little arms and legs move jerkily, propelling him over to the shade of a tree in which squirrels are skittering and chattering.

Ben’s mouth drops into a perfect ‘o’ as he rocks back onto his butt to watch the show the animals are putting on for him over his head. He tries to mimic the noises they’re making just like he tries to mimic everyone else when he doesn’t have a bottle or pacifier in his mouth. He looks from them to Tris his arms waving excited as if to say, _do you see them!? look at them! they’re so funny!_ ; or at least that’s what Tris assumes he’s trying to say when he dissolves into happy giggles.

When the squirrels bound to another branch in a different tree Benjamin’s face falls tragically and he pulls himself to his feet, using the trunk to balance himself. “Where did they go, Ben?” Tris asks she picks him up. “Should we find them?”

She rests him on her hip and starts walking slowly between the trees, Benjamin looking around keenly as she does. They don’t find the animals again, and eventually Tris says, “I think they went to take a nap,” as she carries him back the grassy clearing they were in before.

Benjamin crawls around for a while more when she puts him back down, Tris keeping a close eye on him because he’s at that age where he tries to put everything in his mouth, whether it’s food or not. By the time she needs to go back to Candor he’s worn himself out enough that he falls asleep, tucked against her chest, as she finishes up the last of the business she has to with the other faction’s ambassador.

 

~~xxxx~~

 

Tobias is waiting for her when she walks through the door of their apartment. Sitting at the table, in the waning light of sunset, she wonders if he’s even moved since he got of work mid-afternoon.

Wordlessly, she removes Benjamin from the backpack-like carrier and hands him to his father. Tobias’ focus doesn’t waver from her though, despite Benjamin squirming in his lap and pawing at his face.

“We need to talk.”

Tris has to bite back the response that they really don’t, that it will just turn into another screaming match between them. She sighs tiredly and rubs her eyes, but when she opens them again he’s still sitting there, looking at her in that unwavering way he does when he’s not going to let her off the hook.

“Later, okay? Just… later.”

And with that she steps around him to the kitchen, intent on occupying herself with making dinner, except Tobias has already beaten her the punch on that front; a slowly simmering chicken stew burbles cozily on the stove. It’s her favourite, something he usually saves for days she goes out to the Bureau and he thinks she needs cheering up.

And something that takes a lot of time and effort because he makes it for her from scratch.

An exasperated sound eeks it’s way up her throat at the sight of it. 

“I’m not going to leave you again; either of you,” he says quietly, bouncing Benjamin lightly on his knee. “I’m not sorry about this morning though,” he says, determined.

Tris doesn’t say anything; she wants to believe him, truly she does, but there’s still fear there. But that fear isn’t why she reacted the way she did this morning.

But since she doesn’t want to talk about the reasons why she did, she focuses on the one he’s offering her. “You’re really telling me you wouldn’t freak out again if I got pregnant?” she scoffs.

“I’m not leaving you again.”

She can’t argue with the certainty in his voice, even if she doesn’t quite believe him.

“I still love you. I still want you.”

“I don’t want to talk about this,” she says, slamming two bowls down on the counter and ripping a drawer open to look for the ladle.

“Well that’s too damn bad because I do!” he snaps so harshly it makes Benjamin cry.

“Good job,” she mutters, swooping in to scoop him up and soothe him.

It’s enough to quell the fight brewing between them, but it simmers just under the surface for the rest of the right; as they eat dinner, as they play with Benjamin, and go through the nightly routine to get him in bed at a decent hour. Normally the time after allows them a precious hour or two to themselves, but tonight Tris is still intent on avoiding Tobias. 

It’s not enough to dissuade him. He follows after her stubbornly, changing into his sleep clothes in the bedroom as she does the same in the bathroom, hiding. He’s already perched on the edge of their bed to waiting for her when she walks back in.

She snaps the light on her nightstand off resolutely and climbs into bed, her back to him. She almost cries when his hand slides under the hem of her tank top.

“Tris?” he asks uncertainly when he feels her body jerk.

“Don’t,” he grits out.

He sighs behind her, finally defeated. “Talk to me,” he murmurs, running his fingers through her hair. It just makes her curl into herself tighter and traitorous tears streak down her face.

They haven’t talked about the things between them (she can’t even think the word ‘sex’ without feeling faintly ill) since that awful fight a few months ago, and that solved exactly nothing. Tris is still worried about getting pregnant again, but there are ways around that, if they’re smart, which they weren’t the night Benjamin was conceived. What’s bothering her - really bothering her -, is, well, _her_.

Tris can’t even look at herself in the mirror anymore; the brief snatches she sees getting in or out of the bath only showing her more flaws. At least when she’s clothed she can cover them up, but naked she can’t hide. She hates the way she looks now; hates the stretch marks that litter her body; hates the fleshy fat on her stomach and hips and thighs she hasn’t quite shed yet; hates how weird her breasts look and feel from nursing Benjamin.

In her darker, critical, self-loathing moments even before Benjamin was born she never understood how Tobias could want her, and now… she can’t even think about now.

“Shit, Tris, are you crying?” he mutters, forcing her onto her back so he can look at her face. It just makes her cry harder.

His arms wrap around her and, contrary to everything else she’s feeling in this moment, she lets him comfort her, because she can accept his comfort, but not his desire. She’s bound to disappoint him on that front.  

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to make you cry,” he says frantically, pecking little kisses to the top of her head, and she almost wants to laugh at how absurd it is.

“You didn’t,” she chokes out, her fingers curling into his shirt more insistently. “I’m just… ugly,” he says, her cheeks flaming a brilliant, painful now that her humiliation is complete.  

“What?” Tobias asks, bewildered, like he can’t even fathom that of all things this is what’s upsetting her so much.

“I told you I don’t want to talk about it,” Tris mutters, angry again, already pulling away from him.

“Hey,” he says, catching her, holding her in place. “You’re not. _You’re not_ ,” he repeats, emphatic, his eyes wide even in the darkness.

He kisses her then, like if his words can’t convince her his lips can, but hers remain firm despite his coaxing.

“I was thinking about you, this morning,” he admits. “It’s always you.”

“It’s how I used to look, not how I am now,” she says bitterly.

“You think I don’t know what you look like?” he challenges.

“I _know_ you don’t,” she retorts.

“You’re wrong,” he says, descending on her, his lips ghosting over the spot on her neck that has always made her whimper, though she fights valiantly to keep it in now.

He keeps talking, his hands gliding over her body, over her clothes, as he describes every mark on her body put their by Benjamin, every change in her shape, with the kind of detail a collector talks about their collection: fond, amused, masterly.

“You’ve been paying close attention,” she breathes out after he’s described everything from how her hair is longer and more lush than it was, to her how defined her arms are now from carrying Ben around all the time, to how he likes the little bit of curve on her hips that she pinches with disdain and he wants to bite into and savor like it’s something decadent.

His smiles is radiant when he says, “I always pay attention to you,” and even if it’s not the exact words he said to her and she to him at the bottom of the Chasm a lifetime ago the meaning is.

“Let me show you how much I want you,” he pleads, kissing her again, and even though there’s still some hesitancy to it, she decides to let him.

He takes his time undressing her, lavishing each newly exposed expanse of skin with attention, sure to tell her that she should be as proud of her stretch marks as she is the bullet wound in her shoulder, and though it might not be the most romantic thing, it makes her feel better, makes her realize her own strength, just like her other scars do.

Still, he’s careful to keep his hands twined in her after he peels away the last of her clothes and kisses his way down her body, his teeth leaving little indentations around her hip bones which somehow still arch up under her skin for him to bite at playfully.

But it’s not until she feels his tongue spreading her open for him that she lets herself feel how much she’s missed this, missed him. And for a little while she forgets all the things that were holding her back from him.

She comes so quickly just from his tongue that it’s a little embarrassing. “You taste different too,” he tells her as he languidly kisses her after. “Not bad-different, just different.” She blushes all the way down to her breasts at that.

He pulls away to fumble at the drawer of his nightstand, retrieving a box of condoms.

“That was optimistic of you,” she says, her voice uncertain because without his undivided attention she feels her doubts creeping back in. He must sense it though and before they can consume her again his hand is back between her legs, making her come again.

Tobias settles between her legs then, like he has so many time before, except this time he moves with excruciating care. Once he’s sure that she’s okay he rolls his hips, sliding in and out of her softly, like waves; ebb and flow.

He groans when her fingers dig into his hair, tugging at the roots the way he likes. And maybe it should be weird or awkward considering they haven’t done this in well over a year, but it feels like it always did, like the only thing that matters is the press and slide of their chests against each other.

Tris’ legs wrap around his waist, holding him to her, urging him deeper. Tobias pants against her neck, and her back bows, and before they know they’re both rushing towards something they can’t control, the world shrinking, turning white behind their eyes. Even after they finish they stay that way for a long time, entwined.

At least until Benjamin cries from the other room, and Tobias rolls off her with a chuckle, snatching up his clothes as he disappears into the bathroom.

She’s dressed when he comes back, Ben cradled in his arm and a bottle in his free hand. Tris is already sitting up in bed, dressed and waiting for them. Tris stares down at Benjamin as he greedily sucks down his bottle, her hair still a tangled mess and the room smelling like sex.

“You’ve always been more than pretty to me, you know,” he says like it’s a secret, his fingers sneaking under her shirt to bump up the rungs of her spine. “Anyone can be pretty with the right clothes and the right haircut, but to be more than that? That’s hard. And it’s made up of so many things you can’t hold onto. And you’re all of them to me.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> and that's as close as I'm going to get to one of the kids walking in on Tris and Tobias having sex.


	43. Tris x Christina (explicit)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've never written femslash before so I make no promises as the quality of this chapter. Also, I watched porn as research for this. It was a burden. You're welcome.

**Prompt: Tris Christina smut?**

* * *

 

It doesn’t happen because Tris is drunk. It’s not an ‘experiment’ or a ‘phase’, or because Tris is lonely or horny (though she hates that word and tries desperately to find a synonym she can live with). There’s curiosity there, shy and nestled in her chest, her lips; in her fingertips, that curl cautiously into the hem of Christina’s shirt.

When she asks Christina after, why she kissed her, she answers, “Because I wanted to. Because it felt good,” and Tris decides that’s reason enough.

~~xxxx~~

Their apartment has two bedrooms, but Christina’s goes unused after their first kiss.

Tris can’t sleep without the weight of Christina curled around her - an arm around her waist and her nose tucked into the back of Tris’ neck -, and the warm, sandalwood-vanilla-lavender scent she brings with her when she does.

“It’s okay. You can touch me,” Christina says one night, being her typical Candor self: perceptive and forthright.

Christina is arched over her and their limbs are tangled in the sheets that are already feeling damp and close when she says it, but Tris keeps kissing her despite the offer, mumbling, “not yet,” into the soft skin of her neck. She’s thinking about Tobias, about the rasp of his stubble against her teeth and how different this is, and she doesn’t want to be thinking about that when she touches Christina, even if the only reason she is, is because despite how different Christina feels the damp heat blooming between Tris’ legs doesn’t.

When Tris’ tongue finds her pulse point and laves at it, Christina moans, “ _That. Harder_ ,” like she’s going to die if Tris doesn’t so she does, her thighs trying to press together to feed the hot ache between them. She can’t because Christina’s legs are between her own, but the movement seems to start something between them and before Tris knows it Christina is leaving a slick trail of wetness on her thigh as she rides it, and even as one of Tris’ hands furiously pushes up the hem of Christina’s shirt, her other hand is locked behind Christina’s knee desperate to keep it wedged against her center since the pressure feels so so good.

Christina’s breast feels heavy in her hand and, for a moment, Tris is both jealous and insecure, but then Christina’s hand knot in her hair and urges her to take it into her mouth, and when she feels Christina’s nipple pucker against her tongue Tris’ pebble against the rough fabric of her shirt in response. She feels herself clench too, needy and insistent.

“Oh my god,” she groans, rolling off her, boneless after Tris makes her come, but it’s not too long before Christina's kissing her softly, in appreciation, in thanks, and pulling her on top so she can come too.

Her fingers are firm between Tris’ legs when she’s spread wide on top of her, but it’s not until those fingers slide across the bare skin on either side of the elastic bands keeping her panties in place that she does. Tris doesn’t know what it is about the slide of skin-against-skin that does it for her, and cares even less.

They fall asleep, sweaty and still tangled together and vaguely Tris thinks they should really wash the sheets, but that’s hard to care about too with the tips of Christina’s breasts brushing against her own every time her chest rises and falls in time with her breath.

~~xxxx~~

Tris expects a flurry of gossip and condemnation when they get caught with their hands down each other’s pants in one of the training rooms - like there would be if they were in Abnegation. Sexuality is much more fluid in Dauntless, and though it’s remarked upon it’s always done so with a shrug and a self-deprecating smirk like the speaker should have figured it out long before now.

Tobias is the only one who looks at Tris like he doesn’t recognize her after the revelation is made, and though her first instinct is to be defensive she finds she really doesn’t care when she thinks about it. She’s happy, and that’s enough.

~~xxxx~~

There’s a word for what they’re doing, a term, and Tris tries to think of it, but it’s something fleeting, something that would make her chase it to remember it, and with her legs spread across the couch and Christina’s scissored between them, her clit rubbing against Tris’ the same way her fingers do when she makes her come that way, Tris finds she’d much rather chase the feeling making her toes curl and her hips swivel in time with Christina’s.

“Almost?” Christina rasps against Tris’ ankle where it resting on her shoulder, her tongue curling out to lick around the bone.

“Not yet,” Tris says, and it’s almost a whine. She’s so close, so close, but not... quite... Her palms flatten against the cushions so can get better leverage with her hips.

“Tell me what you need. I’ll do it. I want to make you come,” she says, her hand skimming Tris’ leg, down to where they’re joined, but only pausing long enough to collect some of the wetness there on her thumb before swirling it around the hard, sensitive, peaked buds of Tris’ breasts.

“That,” she gasps, “keep doing that. And…,” she trails off, letting her body speak instead because words can still be hard for her sometimes. Her hands grip Christina’s hips, adding more pressure and the friction she needs.

Christina pitches forward a little at the change in position and her breasts bounce invitingly just a few inches in front of Tris' face. She coaxes one into her mouth, even though it’s an awkward angle that makes her neck twinge. It makes Christina swear lowly under her breath, makes her work harder between Tris’ legs to get them both off.

When she comes her nails dig red crescents into Christina’s hips and even though Tris comes quiet, Christina shouts her name, shouts filthy things that will make Tris blush every time she comes face to face with the neighbors (but secretly it makes her love Christina a little more).

“I think dinner’s burning,” Christina mumbles against Tris, after, once they’ve both caught their breath, though they’re still too boneless to move, yet.

“It’s not burning until the smoke alarm starts beeping,” Tris quips, wrapping her arms around her tighter in case Christina has any ideas about getting up. “And besides, I think we need to try… _that_ … again. Dinner can wait.”

 


	44. Trouble - The Happy Ending out-take

**Ben gets in trouble and Tris and Tobias are lost on how to punish him because nothing like this has ever happened before**

 

* * *

It all happens so quick Benjamin struggles to separate each event in his mind. It’s a task made infinitely harder by the school principal staring him down disapprovingly. His parents are on their way too, and as Ben sits on his hands and bites his lip and tries to tell Mr. Brown what really happened without stuttering too much and making it sound like a lie, he’s also calculating the time it will take for Tris or Tobias to show up, and then what?

If he’s lucky, it will be his dad. And he thinks it probably will be because it’s Friday and lunchtime, and he knows his father only works half-days on Friday’s at the Hub and spends his afternoon at the Pire ‘attending to faction business’ as he calls it. But between the two of them he thinks his dad is the parent least likely to give him the Three Full Name treatment because everyone knows Tris is the disciplinarian in their family.

Once Benjamin finishes talking Mr. Brown stares at him for a moment and then tells him he’s going to go check on the other student in the tone of voice that Ben is sure is supposed to make him feel ashamed (and the follow-up, “I pray he doesn’t have to go to the hospital,” is said like guilt is supposed to lash at him, sharp and painful).

Benjamin pulls his hands out from under his thighs and tries to wipe the smudge of dirt stuck between the lines off on his pants, but it just won’t budge and he starts panicking because the evidence of his misdeed is right there for everyone to see, should they look.

He startles when the door opens again, his hands frozen mid-rub, and twists around so harshly his neck twinges, but it’s not the principle, it’s his dad.

And he’s not happy. Benjamin can see that right away. He has a frown etched deep in his face and his brows are pinched together tightly.

Tobias doesn’t say anything as he deftly pops the button holding his suit jacket closed, reaches down and moves the chair Ben is sitting in so it’s facing away from the desk and then does the same with the other chair so that they’re sitting face-to-face. He sits down, steepling his arms on his knees and fixing Benjamin with the kind of look that lets him know whatever he’s about to say better be the truth.

“What happened, Ben? It’s not like you to act this way.”

Benjamin’s chin tips down to his chest, unwilling to meet his father’s gaze.

Tobias reaches out, hooking his fingers under Ben’s chin and forcing him to look at him. “What happened?” he asks again.

“I…,” he starts, his voice wobbling. He sniffs hugely, and then it all comes out. How there was a boy - Kevin - who was chasing Raleigh around the school yard, throwing pebbles at her. And Benjamin, seeing that, picked up the closest thing at hand, which happened to be a big, hard dirt clod and threw it at the boy.

Benjamin’s mouth snaps shut when the door opens again, and the way the principle nearly trips all over himself to leave again when Tobias snaps, “we’re not done,” would be funny at any other time.

“It was an accident,” Benjamin says miserably once they’re alone again.

“No,” Tobias corrects, sounding stern. “It wasn’t an accident that you picked up that rock and threw it.”

Benjamin bites his tongue, wanting to protest that it wasn’t a rock, precisely, but instead says, “I didn’t mean to hit him in the head though! I just wanted him to stop!”

Tobias looks at him for a long moment before ducking his head so he can scratch the back of his neck like he does when he’s nervous before getting up and calling the principle back in. It doesn’t go much better once they’re all together again. Benjamin is suspended for a week; if he expects his dad to say anything to that, he doesn’t.

He doesn’t say anything either as they walk out of the office and to the Pire since his dad still has work to do. His silence makes Benjamin even more nervous and miserable than he already is. “We’ll talk when your mother gets here,” he says as he sits Benjamin down in one corner of his office with a stack of work he’ll have to complete at home instead of at school.

It doesn’t take Tris long to show up - 20 minutes, maybe, that feel like they pass much more quickly -, and, like he could with his dad, he can tell Tris isn’t happy with him at all. He goes through the same thing with her that he did with Tobias, explaining what happened, and waiting for their verdict because he knows that even though the school has handed down their punishment, his parents haven’t, yet.

After he finishes Tris sighs and scratches her hand through her hair before standing up again to pace in front of the window. She does it for so long he’d think he was off the hook except she keeps making little movements with her hand and occasionally shaking her head the way she does when she’s working out a problem, and right now, Ben’s that problem.

Tobias just watches her like he’s waiting for her to act before he does.

Like he thinks it will help his case Benjamin nods contritely when Tris tells him that violence should never be his first response to anything, even violence. And when she tells him he’s really lucky he didn’t seriously injure Kevin he’s quick to say “I know,” and “I’m sorry,”, but he can still tell the worst is yet to come, and it does when his mother decides that during his suspension from school he’s also not allowed to play with his friends, at home, either.

Benjamin makes a protesting noise in his throat at that, and looks at his dad pleadingly, but all Tobias does is wave his hands and say, “that sounds fair.”

“And no cake, either,” Tris adds like an afterthought, like that’s somehow worse than a week without his friends. 


	45. Thunder - Patterns & Fairytales out-take

**Prompt: the first time Ben climbs into their bed because of a thunderstorm**

* * *

 

The first time Benjamin hears thunder he is 6 months old and has just started sleeping in his crib, in his room, and like every baby he is born with the innate fear of loud noises. At the time Tobias just so happens to be giving him a bottle, and though he lets it drop from his mouth so he can cry and whimper at the sound, he’s also comforted by his father’s arms.

“It’s okay,” Tobias murmurs, shifting him so that instead of being cradled against his chest, he pressed against. “I won’t let it hurt you,” he finishes.

~~xxxx~~

The next time he hears thunder he’s a little bit older, and this time it does take some time for one of his parents to come to his rescue. As it turns out it’s Tris this time, her hair pinned up in a bun and towel wrapped around her body. She had been hoping she could take a bath while Ben was napping, but obviously that’s not going to happen.

“Come on, baby,” she says, lifting him out of his crib and holding him close. “You don’t have to be scared of that big, angry noise,” she coos, soothing him. “Me and you, we’re going to take a bath, and Mother Nature is going to settle down, and then we’re going to take a nice long nap.”

Tris isn’t sure if it’s her quiet murmurs or the fact that, in the bathroom with the water gushing out of the tap, it’s impossible to hear anything else, but Benjamin starts to calm immediately. 

It’s probably just not being able to hear anything but the water though.

And maybe a little bit of a Pavlovian response too since ‘bath time’ having always been a fun thing for him.

Either way she strips him of the diaper and t-shirt he had been wearing, and very carefully lowers them into the tub. She can’t take the nice, long, hot bath she intended since it would scald Benjamin’s sensitive skin - and she can’t use the bubble bath she planned on either, though she does add some of his to the water -, but it’s not so bad, as these things go.

“I know this is usually Daddy Time, but this is nice too, huh?” she asks, propping Ben up so he doesn’t drown as he playfully slaps as the thin bubbles floating on the surface.

They stay in until their skin is pruned and the water is tepid, and even though it takes some maneuvering to get both her and Benjamin washed, they get it done.

By the time she’s got him dressed in a fresh diaper and shirt he’s already asleep and doesn’t notice her putting him back in his crib, now that the sky is silent.

~~xxxx~~

The next spring and summer, there aren’t many storms, and though some of them do cause thunder it’s never close enough for Benjamin to get upset about it. And for a little while, his parents forget that he’s so afraid, and maybe hope, just a little, that he’s grown out of his fear.

~~xxxx~~

The clap of thunder is so loud that it wakes Tris and Tobias up out of a dead sleep. Even before their brains catch up with their bodies Tobias is kicking the covers away, some deeper instinct kicking in at the back of his sleep muddled brain, propelling him out of bed. There was no way _anyone_  slept through that, let alone their toddler son.

As he strides through the bathroom there’s another tremendous clap and Tobias actually cringes like the ceiling might shake down on top of him. It doesn’t, but every bottle lined up on the counter rattles and clangs. If Benjamin wasn’t afraid of thunder before he certainly will be now, Tobias decides; mostly because he’s a little freaked out by this too.

Like Tris and Tobias, Benjamin is sitting straight up in bed, his eyes wide and scared. He hasn’t worked up to tears and hysteria yet, but Tobias thinks that’s just because he’s so shocked. Tobias deftly extricates him from his bed, careful Ben doesn’t get a foot hung up on the bumpers that keep him from rolling out and falling to the floor, and wraps him up in the blue quilt that was slung over the back of the rocking chair. 

Another earth shattering clap of thunder sounds as he walks back into the bedroom, and as Benjamin presses impossibly closer to him, he brings the blanket up like a hood, so that Benjamin is completely cocooned between it and his father’s body.

Tris’ arms are out-stretched, waiting for them, but Tobias lays flat on his back so Ben can lay pressed against his chest; it’s his favourite way to nap, and Tobias hopes it’s a comfort to him now. Tris scoots against his side so they’re all as close as can be; Benjamin on Tobias’ chest, and each of them with an arm around him. Tris pushes back the hood of the blanket just a bit so she can whisper little things to them as they ride out the storm.

By the time it passes they’re all so tired they fall asleep that way. And every time there’s a thunderstorm after that Benjamin finds himself in his parents bed, at first because they pick him up and carry him there, and then - when he’s a little older, and a little braver - when his own feet carry him there, scurrying through the jack-and-jill bathroom and climbing up on their bed, to firmly wedge himself between them where he feels safest.


	46. Patterns & Fairytales - Alternate Ending

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And alternate ending to Patterns & Fairytales where Tris and Tobias don't get back together. Thanks to Tumblr user think-some-more for giving me the nudge I needed to finally write this, though it's long been on my mind. 
> 
> On the upside, it's just a drabble that has no bearing on the Patterns universe because we all know Tris and Tobias deserve their Happily Ever After ;)

_I cleaned my stuff out the apartment. You should have it; it's your home. Tori fixed up the nursery, for the baby._

The note is unsigned, but it doesn't need to be either. Tris shoves it in her desk, and tries not to think about it, which is impossible.

For the first time since their fight Tris takes the elevator up to their floor, her heart hammering and the baby kicking the whole way. She can barely breath as she walks into the scene of her and Tobias' last fight.

"Oh, Tobias," she exhales shakily, her voice caught somewhere between disbelief and the sob working it's way up her throat, as she steps into the nursery.

It's perfect. Absolutely perfect, and she knows it's his goodbye.

* * *

It only takes Tris a week to decide that she can't stay in the apartment either, at least not as it is now. There are too many reminders of her life with Tobias.

But she can't leave either, not with all the work Tori put into the nursery for her. It would be rude, and, if she's honest, she's not ready to say her own goodbye, yet.

Instead she hires someone to repaint the bedroom, buys all new linens so she doesn't have to smell Tobias on the sheets anymore (and seriously contemplates burning the old ones because there are too many memories woven into the fabric), and a new couch, if only so she doesn't have to look at the old one and remember that's where they conceived Benjamin.

It works, sort of. The space starts to feel less like 'theirs' and more like 'hers', and that's the best she can hope for at the moment.

* * *

"Are you really mad at me?" Christina asks worriedly, her brow furrowed in concern.

Tris sighs deeply. She's too exhausted to be angry. If she wasn't she probably would be mad at Christina for the surprise baby shower she just had to endure. Tris hated being the center of attention, cake and stew be damned. And the next person who tries to touch her belly -

"I just wanted to show you that you don't have to do this on your own."

"Yes, I do," Tris snaps.

"No, you don't. Everyone who was here tonight, we'll be here for you too, once the baby is born," Christina argues.

"He's not your responsibility," Tris says, smoothing a hand over her stomach. "He's mine, and I need to be able to do this. On my own."

What she doesn't say, but which Tris is sure Christina has figured out, is that she doesn't want to rely on anyone but herself because she thinks they'll just leave her.

Tobias did.

* * *

Tris gets through the early stages of labor just fine. Christina and Uriah took turns sleeping on her couch, which means one of them was there when she went into labor. Uriah walks around her apartment with her - trying to cheer her up by cracking awful jokes - until she decides it is time to go the Infirmary.

By the time they get Tris situated in a bed and the epidural administered Christina is there to take over. She dutifully holds Tris' hand and tries to soothe and encourage her in turns.

But there comes a point - a point when Tris has been at this for  _hours_  and she is sure this baby is never coming out - when she just loses it.

She scream Christina out of the room because she isn't the person Tris wants. That person isn't here, and Tris can't keep looking at her friend and thinking of her lover and have this baby all at the same time.

Tris feels guilty for it, after, but Christina dismisses it with a wave of her hand, and the sarcastic comment that, "no woman should be held accountable for the things they say when they're trying to push something the size of a watermelon out something the size of a lemon."

* * *

As it turns out there's a flurry of paperwork - a veritable snowstorm of bureaucratic bullshit - that has to be filled out, and signed, and officiated to declare a new life entering the world.

But more to the point, it's how the rumor that Tobias isn't Benjamin's father gets started because when the hospital administrator asks for the name of the father Tris says, "unknown."

Dr. Gonzales gives her a look, and says Tris' name warningly, but Tris ignores her and the Admin is practically salivating at this salacious piece of news, so in the end, under the 'Father's Name' space on Benjamin Prior's birth certificate reads exactly that: "unknown".

She'll tell Ben the truth someday, when he's big enough to understand, but that day is not today.

* * *

"She's drowning," Zeke says tersely.

Tobias doesn't say, "I know," because he doesn't, not really. All he knows is what he sees on the security cameras, and the paperwork scanned and saved onto the servers.

He knows that Tris hasn't left their -  _her,_ her  _apartment,_  he silently chastises himself - since she brought Benjamin home. The most he's seen is her quickly leaning out the door to grab the parcels of food the kitchen sends up for her three times a day, and even that is rare; usually whoever's going into her apartment - Christina, Uriah, even Zeke and Shauna, which stings like betrayal every time Tobias sees them do it - grab it on their way in.

He's seen too, the approval for extended maternity leave, Tori's signature cramped and sharp at the bottom; you'd never know she was such an artist from her handwriting.

"You don't have anything to say?" Zeke scoffs, his temper getting the better of him.

Tobias pinches his lips together because he has a lot to say, but none of it is what Zeke wants to hear.

* * *

The first time Tobias sees the baby, in person, is when it's six months old. He's leaving the commissary, brown bottle of alcohol wrapped in a non-descript brown paper bag on his way to his night shift in the control room when it happens.

He stares, and though Tris doesn't see him, the baby does. His eyes are wide and deep blue and watchful where he's nestled against her chest in the sling she carries him in.

 _It's better this way_ , Tobias tells himself and tries to believe it.

* * *

Tris isn't happy. Tobias can tell even if he's only seeing her on the grainy gray-scale of the security cameras. It doesn't matter how much he drinks or fights, he can't forget her, and he can tell she isn't happy; not all the time anyway. Benjamin makes her smile, makes her laugh, but it's like a cloud flitting through the sky on a windy day: there and gone as quickly as it came.

It's late summer, Tobias realizes vaguely, as he watches Tris and Benjamin at the park, him in shorts and a t-shirt and her in a long maxi-skirt like she favors in hot weather.

She has a routine now, working from early morning to mid-afternoon, either at the Pire or taking the baby with her when she goes to visit the other factions or out to the Bureau. But every day she takes Benjamin to the park. She eats a late lunch and gives him a bottle, and after, he crawla around in the grass until he gets tired and then they take a nap, Benjamin falling asleep on her chest with her arms wrapped around him.

It's the only time she smiles like Tobias remembers. But on the day Benjamin walks to her instead of crawls - unsteady and pitching from side to side like he could fall at any moment - she gives him a smile Tobias has never seen, and he thinks, then, that he's lost her for good.

* * *

Tobias is aware of the sensation of being dragged, and then, stranger still, being carried. He jolts into consciousness for a moment when the icy spray of the shower hits him. It must not be enough though because before he knows it someone is shoving their fingers down his throat and making him vomit.

There's nothing but blackness after that, and he thinks he's probably dying, but that's okay because he doesn't have anything worth staying alive for anymore, so really, what's the point?

And the blackness just gets better when memories of Tris surface. He doesn't know how they can feel so real, be so accurate after so much time apart, but he doesn't question it either, just accepts it as the gift that it is.

He revels in her weight against his chest, loops his arms around her to keep her there (or tries to, though his arms are heavy and uncooperative). He tells her things; how much he misses her, and loves her, and how, maybe, when she's dead too, they can be together again. He tells her he'll wait for her.

Tobias isn't sure if she can hear him because when she tries to say things to him, in turn, it sounds garbled and faint and very far away. But she feels close so he holds on to that and her.

It's quiet, and he's dry and warm when he finds the strength to open his eyes again. He's in bed, in the Infirmary, the blankets pulled up to his chin, and there is a doctor who's looking at him very sternly. He gets told he almost died from alcohol poisoning, and when the doctor leaves it's just him and Zeke who is sitting stonily in a chair by the door looking like he's debating killing Tobias himself.

He doesn't ask him if Tris was really there or if he was just hallucinating it. He's not sure which would be worse.

* * *

Tobias gives up drinking. For the most part, anyway.

He's still working the night shift because it's the best way to avoid coming face-to-face with Tris. But in the absence of alcohol a burning, seething jealousy often takes it's place. And it scares the hell out of him because you shouldn't feel that way about a child. He does though, every time he sees her and Benjamin on the security cameras because when it came down to him or the baby, Tris picked the baby.

It just reinforces his decision to stay away.

But somehow in his endeavor to get from move through his life feeling as little as possible two years have elapsed. Every day feels the same to Tobias though.

He wakes at dusk and while most people are settling down to dinner he's eating his breakfast. He works the nightshift in the control room, alone. Afterwards he goes to the gym and works out until he's shaking so bad he can barely make it back to his apartment in the Pit. He down a protein drink, showers, and then chases it with a huge glass of the Amity drink that promises long, dreamless sleep.

Two years later and he'd still dream of her every night otherwise.

* * *

"It's Zeke's birthday, you have to come," Shauna says in a tone that brokers no argument.

"Is she going to be there?"

"She'll come early, and you'll come late," Shauna dismisses. "She won't have to see you."

"Fine," Tobias huffs.

~~xxxx~~

Tobias doesn't know if he's early or Tris is late. All he knows is that when he steps off the elevator there's a toddler running towards him, and it's like looking in the mirror. He doesn't even see Tris playfully chasing after Benjamin until she's there, scooping him up.

They don't say anything to each other, but they keep staring until the elevator doors close between them.

* * *

Tobias pours a shot into his cup of coffee and kicks his feet up onto the desk to get comfortable as he drinks it. The middle of the night is the worst; it's when the thoughts that he can't escape descend and threaten to eat him alive before the sun rises on another day and he can drown them in pretty, pink, strawberry flavored tea.

He's just swirling the dregs around his cup, feeling the maudlin buzz of whiskey warming his stomach when he sees Tris hurrying to the infirmary, Benjamin in her arms. It's late enough that she doesn't meet anyone, though she does stop once to let him puke into a trash can on their way there.

It's another twenty minutes before one of the doctors logs onto one of the computers in the infirmary to update Benjamin Prior's medical file. "Severe ear infection," it reads, followed by a long list of medicines and treatment instructions, which include keeping Benjamin there until his usual doctor arrives for her shift at 8 A.M. so that she can treat and release him since, according to his file, ear infections are a common occurrence for Benjamin. 

Tobias can't see into the treatment rooms on the monitors, just the hallways, and despite his better judgement he finds himself sneaking into the infirmary for reasons he can't explain when he should be going home.

The door to the room is open, but Tobias doesn't go in. He doesn't need to. Standing in the doorway gives him a perfect view of Tris curled in the narrow bed around Benjamin, both of them asleep.

He doesn't feel jealous. He doesn't know what he feels. He just knows it's hurts.

* * *

It's stupid and dangerous, but Tobias finds himself watching Tris and Benjamin after that.

In person.

Across the dining hall, usually, but on summer days when the sun doesn't go down until late he decides to go for a run instead of to the gym and invariably his route takes him past the park.

Benjamin doesn't have any more ear infections between his third and fourth birthday's, but as Tobias watches he recognizes a certain awareness taking over Benjamin's features as he ages.

Tobias isn't sure if Tris sees him or she just ignores him if she does, but more than once he catches Benjamin staring back, and it's almost shocking how his little face gets hard and how his arms loop around his mother like he's protecting her.

Tobias knows all about that.

* * *

The first time Benjamin asks Tris why he doesn't have a dad, she's sure she has a heart attack.

"He's… gone," she finally stutters out, her hands shaking so bad it's a miracle she can wash the shampoo mohawk out of Benjamin's hair at all.

"Like Gramma Natalie and Grampa Andrew?" he asks, eyes closed so he doesn't get soap in them and completely oblivious to his mother's turmoil.

For a second she contemplates telling him that Tobias is, in fact, dead. It would makes things so much simpler if Benjamin believed that. But she can't very well tell him that when Tobias is walking around Dauntless very much alive, can she?

"No, just… not here," she says. Benjamin doesn't really get it through, and she's doing a poor job explaining the difference, twisting herself into linguistic knots that seem to just leave him more confused.

After that the floodgates seem to open. Benjamin asks her questions about Tobias and some she knows how to answer, but most she doesn't, especially what happened and where he went, if he's not here. She's not sure herself, to be honest, but four years old is too young to tell him the truth that his father didn't want him.

* * *

"He's a smart kid, you know," Zeke says, fiddling with his drink.

Tobias should have known it was some kind of trap when Zeke badgered him into going to the bar after his shift ended and before Tobias began.

"No, I don't," Tobias says flatly, tossing back his shot and picking up his beer.

"Right."

"So why are we having this conversation?" Tobias asks testily.

"Because he's starting to ask Tris about why he doesn't have a father; where he is, what happened, why he's not here…," he trails off.

"What did Tris say?"

"Just that you were gone. She doesn't really know what else to tell him."

"It's for the best."

Zeke's leg beats out a rapid tattoo, the way it always does when he's debating something. Finally, he leans forward, the better to keep this conversation between them. "She misses you, man," he says in a frantic whisper. "She doesn't talk about it, but I can tell - everyone can tell. She hasn't been with anyone else, and neither have y-"

"Stop," Tobias snaps, cutting him off. He leans back in his chair and drains the last of his beer before rising to his feet. "We're not a possibility anymore. Stop trying to make it sound like we are."

"Hey," Zeke catches his arm and holds him in place as Tobias tries to walk out. "The kid is  _smart_. And one day soon he's going to see you and put it together, and you need to figure out what you're going to do when he does."

* * *

When the knock sounds on her door late one night the last person Tris expects to be on the other side is Tobias, but there he is. Like the last time they came face-to-face they just stare at each other for a long moment.

He looks different now, older, which she supposes he is considering he's 25 now, but it's deeper than that. The lines in his face, the hollows in his cheeks, and the purple tint beneath his eyes all speak to years spent living rough.

"I just wanted to see you one more time," he says, eventually, looking at his feet and not at her despite what he just said.

"Why?" It should be angry, or hurt, or  _something_ , but it's most just a hollow breath.

"I'm leaving. Zeke told me about - that  _he's_  been asking questions. It's just better if I leave. For everyone," Tobias says, daring to look at Tris.

"You don't-"

"It's your home," Tobias says firmly, stepping one foot across the threshold and leaning in to quickly kiss her cheek in farewell.

Tris' fingers knot into his shirt though, holding him there. "You don't have to leave," she says in a strained whisper. "Ben and I, we're moving. I'm going to be the new liaison between the Council and Bureau, so we're moving to an apartment in the Center City district."

"It's better this way, Tris," Tobias argues, gentle, but unyielding.

It's pure selfishness though when he nudges her nose with his and fits their lips together. The pain of it is almost overwhelming; a monster that slithers out from his heart, it's tentacles slipping through his veins, threatening to kill him in the sweetness of being close to her again.

It takes all of Tobias' willpower to pull away, to lean his forehead to hers and catch his breath. "It's better this way," he repeats and when he makes to leave again, she lets him.

Tris doesn't close the door until she hears the elevator doors slide shut and the ding that lets her know the car is carrying it's occupants away. She slides down, puddling on the floor, and, for the first time since Tobias almost died, Tris lets herself cry for him.


	47. Jinx (explicit) - 40 Weeks out-take

**Prompt: Tris has sex while pregnant/has apprehensions about it.**

* * *

 

"You look like you're feeling better," Tobias comments lightly, wrapping his arms around Tris from behind as she cleans up the dinner dishes.

"Don't jinx it," she scolds. She's been so sick with this pregnancy, but it's true, the last few days she's been able to eat dinner with Tobias and Ben and actually keep the food down, even if the mornings are still awful.

"You've gotta throw salt over your shoulder now, so you don't," Benjamin pipes up, squeezing around his parents to put his empty ice cream bowl in the sink.

"Is that so?"

"Yep," Benjamin says with great authority.

"And you've got to get in the bath," Tobias counters, scooping him up.

Benjamin squirms and fusses playfully, but once his dad is done tickling him, he dutifully leans over to give Tris a kiss just in case she falls asleep before he gets out, and lets Tobias carry him into the bathroom.

As much as he can over the sound of the water and Benjamin's chattering, Tobias tracks Tris' movements through the apartment; listens to her finish cleaning up the kitchen, and going around and turning off the lights in the living room, and finally, changing for bed. He hopes she's still awake by the time he gets to join and maybe ushers Benjamin out of the bath a little sooner than he otherwise would, in pursuit of that goal.

And luck must be on his side because by the time he's got Benjamin out of the tub and into his pajamas, Tris is still awake to join him as he tucks Ben into bed. A few minutes later, they're crawling into their own bed; Tris instinctively rolling onto her right side because laying on the left makes her nauseous, and Tobias curling around her.

"What do you think you're doing?" Tris asks as Tobias hand curls around her hip and starts pushing her sleep shirt up.

"Nothing," he says, hastily, smoothing the shirt back down again, even though her tone was not accusatory. "Sorry."

She cranes her neck around so she can look at him in the dim light spilling out of the bathroom. "I'm not mad, just curious," she points out.

"I…," Tobias starts and then trails off. "I… miss you, being with you. And you've been feeling better. But right now I kind of feel like an asshole."

"You're not. It hasn't really crossed my mind though, with how crappy I've been feeling. I'm not sure, um,  _that_  is a good idea though," Tris says, frowning.

"It won't hurt the baby," Tobias rushes to reassure her. "I checked."

"Oh my God," she laughs hiding behind her hands.

"I'm starting to feel insulted," he huffs, rolling onto his back and scrubbing at his face.

"That's not," Tris says, trying to contain her laughing. "I wasn't worried about  _that_. Just that it might make me sick, you know? From, like, the, uh… the… motion," she stutters, feeling slightly mortified now that she's not laughing.

"Well, we can try and if you start to feel sick we can stop," Tobias suggests.

"Okay," Tris says after chewing on her lip and mulling the idea over for a moment.

"Okay," Tobias parrots back, finally looking at her.

"So…"

"...What?"

"Are you gonna…?"

"Oh.  _Oh._  Right."

Tobias rolls onto his side again, fitting himself against Tris. It feels awkward though, and it really shouldn't because they've done this enough that Tris is pregnant, so obviously he should know what to do by now.

But that feeling hangs around for a while, and he keeps kissing her everywhere he can reach until it doesn't.

"You okay?" he asks, when she arches back against his cock, and that should be answer enough, but he needs to hear her say it is too.

"Yeah," she pants, squirming some more just to make him groan like he's dying.

"Okay, just stay laying on your side," he directs, since he thinks that's going to be the best way to go about this.

His hand moves from her hip to her waist and then further, fingers slipping past the thin piece of cotton covering the part of her he wants most right now. She's already so wet his fingers slip clumsily and he knows that's part of the pregnancy - that she wet all the time now -, but right this second it feels like it's just for him.

When she starts shaking against him, he bites her neck and she bites the pillow to keep from crying out and waking Benjamin up, and once she's done they fumble her underwear and his down to the foot of the bed where they bunch, forgotten, in the rucked up sheets.

Tris stays on her side and Tobias slips a leg between hers, opening her so that her legs are spread wide for him even if they're both laying down. They've never fucked like this before and it takes a minute to get the position they need, but then Tris is tight and wet and all around him.

He moves gently, slowly testing to see if this is going to make her sick and when it doesn't he moves faster. As much as he wants to, Tobias avoids her breasts. They're swollen and tender and no longer there for his pleasure, which is a shame, but he keeps his hands busy in other ways, in other places that turn her on just as much.

And he can't help thinking it's a good thing he does, because with his fingers busy where they're wetly joined she comes again quickly and it's been so long he doesn't have in him to last at all. Tobias ends up slamming his hips hard enough against hers that she'd roll out of bed if he wasn't holding onto her as he comes with her.

He doesn't pull out until they've both caught their breath and she's stopped twitching around him, sending little jolts of pleasure up his spine like an echo.


	48. Hide & Seek - The Happy Ending out-take

**Prompt: Could you do a drabble on ben tris matty and tobias play hide and seek and they can't find ben??**

**Prompt: Mommy!Tris**

* * *

 

Benjamin thinks the best thing about having a house that's three stories tall is that it's just _made_ for playing hide-and-seek. It just takes a little convincing (okay, whining) to get everyone else to play too because he could play with just him and Matthew, but Matty is two and thinks hiding behind a floor lamp is the best idea ever, despite the fact that his brother can see 99% of him, and 'finds' him in less than 2 seconds flat.

But finally, halfway through his winter vacation, his dad isn't working and his mom isn't napping and even Zoey's there to play too, and it's going to be the best because Benjamin has figured out the perfect hiding spot.

So he slaps his dad's side and yells "you're it!" and runs upstairs. He can hear Zoey thundering up behind him, and Matthew giggling as he goes to his usual hiding spot, but by the time he gets to the third floor the sounds are muffled and distant. He slips into his father's office and slowly opens the closet door, careful not to make any sound that would give him away (though he's sure Tobias is probably still counting to 100).

It's dark in the closet, but the closet isn't his destination. He feels his way in the dark for the little door that's only half his height and the latch that keeps it closed. He sneaks inside and closes that door quietly too. It smells musty in the attic, the air stagnant, and little fluff bunnies from the wool insulation stuffed in the rafters dot the floor.

He's only a few feet into it when he hears the hatch-like door open behind him, and his heart stutters to a stop. He thought for sure no one would find him here, and the fact that someone did - and so quickly - is kind of heart-breaking. So it's sort of a surprise when Tris says, "oh, I guess you had the same idea as me. Do you mind if I hide here too?"

And really, what's Benjamin going to say? "No"? He can't say no to his mom; he's pretty sure there's a law against that, so he scoots further in and makes room for her to sit down next to him.

"How are you doing Ben?" Tris asks in an amused whisper.

"I'm okay," he shrugs. "Kinda cold," he adds because it's a little chilly in the attic.

"C'mere," Tris murmurs, opening her arms for him.

He snuggles against his mother, and he probably shouldn't like it as much as he does, since he's in second grade and all, but there's a particular comfort he finds in his mother's arms that he's unwilling to give up unless he absolutely has to.

"You're getting pretty good at this; I don't think your dad will be able to find us," she praises.

"You're good at it too," he points out because she had the same idea he did. "Did you play hide-and-seek a lot when you were a kid?"

"Mmm, sometimes. My brother didn't like playing it though, so not too much. Besides, there weren't many places to hide in our house; it was a lot smaller than this one."

"What games did you play then?"

"Faction games. Caleb's favourite was 'Candor'. He'd make me sit in a chair and tell the truth."

"That doesn't sound very fun."

"It wasn't, for me. And he never wanted to play Dauntless; he'd always scold me that we'd get hurt."

Benjamin frowns, wanting to say that her brother doesn't sound like he was much fun, but he knows better than to say something like that. Instead he asks, "do you think Dad is looking for us yet?"

"Well, he's definitely found Matthew by now," she chuckles. They go silent for a while though, their ears straining to hear any sounds from below. Faintly, the can hear footsteps, doors opening and closing, and, Benjamin thinks, even one of the couches in the playroom being moved.

It's not long after that, that they hear Tobias' heavy tread - and Matthew's much lighter one - coming up the stairs. He crosses the landing in their bedroom first, checks the closet and the bathroom before trying his office. Benjamin doesn't dare breathe as he hears the outer door of the closet open, and he doesn't think his mother does either.

He can't help grinning at her when the closet door closes again and they hear Tobias go back downstairs. They don't leave though, staying in their little hiding spot until they hear Tobias, Zoey, and Matthew searching the house for them, calling out their names as they go. When they come back to the third floor and do the same Benjamin is ready to burst out of the attic to surprise them, but Tris holds him back.

"Just wait a minute," she cautions. Once his dad and everyone else troop back downstairs, that's when they crawl out.

Tobias is standing in the middle of the playroom, looking thoroughly exasperated when they saunter downstairs, and his, "where were you guys?" is accusatory.

"If we tell you, that takes all the fun out of it, doesn't it?" Tris says with a wink to Benjamin and peck on Tobias' cheek.


	49. Building Snowmen - The Happy Ending out-take

**Prompt: I know you've already got a request for a drabble on mommy Tris, could you do one of Tris spending alone time with Matty? We never really get to hear about what she does one on one with Matty, and I'm betting it's extremely adorable :)**

* * *

 

While Tobias and Benjamin work on making their new house a home, Tris gets Matthew all to herself, which she thinks suits him just fine.

Ben and Tobias leave early so her and Matty burrow under the covers to cuddle and sleep late. Matthew has a tendency to kick in his sleep and take up much more room than you’d think considering he’s only 2, but Tris reminds herself that he won’t be this age forever - that, in fact, he’ll grow up much quicker than she wants -, and deals with it.

They don’t stir from bed until after 10 in the morning, and when they do it’s to eat toast slathered in butter and made sweet and sticky with cinnamon and sugar. He’s still so small that Tris has to hold him up so he can wash his hands in the sink, and the only way she can get him to sit still so she can brush his teeth is by letting him “brush” hers.

Tris is sure to stuff her bag with coloring books and crayons before they leave the apartment to go upstairs, but once she’s got it slung over her arm Matthew holds his hand up expectantly, a stubborn “up!” popping past his lips. As soon as Tris settles him on her hip, his arms and legs lock around her; he still doesn’t walk anywhere he doesn’t have to, if Tris is there to carry him.

It’s a Saturday so there aren’t many people in the office in the Pire. Harrison is there, and his staff, but not many other people. He waves to Tris as she walks by the glass wall of his office, and she waves back. And it breaks Tris’ heart a little all over again when Matthew starts looking around for Tori. She was always kind to Ben, but she was genuinely fond of Matty. More often than not when Tris had him in her office and Tori needed a break from whatever she was dealing with she would come in and draw with him.

Even now as he settles at desk next to Tris, he looks lonely without Tori there too. And he must be, because as he colors, he’s quiet. Normally he’s a chatterbox, constantly talking and laughing and babbling. Tris finishes what little work she has quickly, wanting to get away from the air of mourning surrounding them.

They eat a quick lunch in the dining hall, and then Tris is careful to bundle Matthew up against the cold before they go play in the park for a while. There are fresh banks of snow built up throughout it, and Matthew has a lot of fun jumping into them and through them and kicking up little flurries of flakes from them. When he finally runs back to Tris, his eyes smiling like his lips surely are where it’s hidden by his scarf, she asks him if he wants to build a snowman.

He nods enthusiastically, and Tris helps him form a snowball, her hands cupping his. “Okay, you’ve got to roll it now, Matthew,” she instructs. It’s not a fast process because he’s only 2, and Tris has to stop herself helping him more than she does, but even as he slips and slides through the snow, it’s worth it for how happy it makes him.

They end up with a snowman that’s Matthew sized, and take their time scrounging sticks for his arms and pebbles for his eyes and mouth.

"Do you want to wait for Ben and Daddy so you can show them too?" she asks once they’ve put the finishing touches on it.

He nods, but holds his hands up to her again, wanting back in her arms now that their task is complete. Tris knows he’s tired, but she decides to wait until Tobias and Ben come home or Matty falls asleep, whichever comes first. Luckily, today, it’s the former and not the latter. Tobias _ooh’s_ and _aah’s_ over their handiwork appropriately which makes Matthew smile sleepily against her, and Tris gently suggests that she can help Benjamin make one too, if he can take a break from working with his dad tomorrow.

"We should make a whole snow family tomorrow," he says, grinning up at her as the four of them walk back to the Pire for an early dinner. "One for each of us."


	50. You're a Pest - The Happy Ending out-take

**Prompt:**   **Can you do a Drabble of Sophie and Ben bonding, like he goes until her nursery in the middle of the night. ~ thegigglygummybear**

* * *

 

Benjamin wakes up in the middle of the night, his mouth sticky and dry. He rolls over and tries to go back to sleep anyway, but it's annoying how thirsty he is, so he finally flings his blankets away in irritation and decides to do something about it.

He hisses a little when his bare feet hit the cold floor, his toes curling away instinctively for a moment, but then he grits his teeth and presses his feet flush with the floor once again; after he used to it, it's not so bad. He tiptoes into the bathroom separating his and Matty's rooms, not bothering to turn on the light since the nightlight plugged into the wall is illumination enough.

There's a stack of paper cups on the counter, but they're not very big and he finds himself filling it one of them over and over so he can drink his fill. He watches himself in the mirror, curious like any child is about what they look like. His eyes look bleary and tired, and his hair is sticking up wildly.

He drinks an extra cup of water for good measure before tossing it into the trash. Going back to his warm, soft bed, piled high with blankets sounds like heaven. And he would do exactly that except for hearing the gentle click of Bandy's nails on the hardwood of the stairs that lead up to the top floor.

"Bandy!" he scolds in a harsh whisper. "Get back here!"

She pauses on the stairs and looks down at him, as if debating for a minute, before trotting up the rest of the flight and disappearing around the landing.

Benjamin takes off after her, intent on taking her back to his room so they can go back to sleep. When he finds her, she's in Sophie's room, perched up on her back legs so that her paws are resting on the edge of her crib whimpering, just like his sister is. Bandy looks at him pleadingly when he walks into the room, as if she's trying to tell him to fix whatever is wrong with the tiny squawking human.

He could go wake his parents, let them know that Sophie needs to be fed or changed or something, but he's already awake anyway, and maybe he can get her back to sleep without waking anyone else, he thinks.

He pats Bandy on the head consolingly and drags the rockers over so that it's next to the crib. It's not steady, obviously, when he stands up on the seat, but he's able to keep his balance and lean over into the crib nonetheless.

"It's okay, Sophie," he coos, trying to adopt the same soothing tone his mother uses when shushing the baby as he pets her head. It works a little, or at least she doesn't work up to full-blown tears. He keeps talking to her though, since he knows she likes that.

"Did you have a nightmare?" he asks as she grabs at his hand playfully. "I get those sometimes, but it's okay because they're not real, even if they're scary, although I don't know what you'd have to be scared of."

His brow furrows as he thinks about what his baby sister could possibly be afraid of at a year old. "Are you afraid no one will come if you need them?" he offers, but the only response he gets is a gurgle. "You don't have to be afraid of that, you know," he whispers like it's a secret. "Someone will  _always_  come if you cry. Mom, or Dad, or me, or Matty; even Bandy will come when you cry, like she did just now."

Sophie rolls over onto her stomach and Benjamin pulls his hand away, not wanting to accidentally hurt her. His eyes widen in alarm though when she pulls herself up onto her knees and then her feet and hangs onto the side of the crib so she can stand up and look at him.

"No, no, no. It's not play time, Sophie, it's sleep time now," he scolds. "You have to go back to sleep."

Her little hand reaches out to grab at him, but he backs away, almost falling off the chair, and she makes a high, sharp, indignant sound. "Shhh!" he hisses emphatically, but it doesn't do anything to stop the tears gathering in her eyes, so he does the only other thing he can think of, and that's crawl into the crib with her.

That makes her giggle happily, and as he lays down she does the same, but only so she can crawl on his chest and paw at his face. "You're a pest sometimes," he grumbles, but that's mostly because she poked him in the eye.

"C'mon, lets go to sleep," he coaxes, wrapping his arms around her. She loves to sleep on their father's chest, and Ben's isn't nearly as big and broad, but Sophie at least takes the hint and nestles against him, the top of her head tucked under his chin.

"Dad says it's a big responsibility to have a sister," he murmurs. "That me and Matty have to look out for you, so you go back to sleep and I'll stay here and if you have another nightmare I'll fight it off like Dad does when me or Matty have them, okay?" he bargains.

And truly, he only plans to stay as long as it takes Sophie to fall back to sleep, but the next thing he knows the sun is streaming through the windows and Sophie's being lifted off his chest and his dad is hoisting him out the crib with his free arm.

"Why were you sleeping with Sophie?" he asks, his voice curious but concerned too.

"She was having nightmares, I think," he yawns. "I was keeping her safe."


	51. 69 (explicit)

**Prompt: Tris/Tobias 69**

* * *

 

Normally when Tris goes down on Tobias he's sitting on the edge of the bed and she's on her knees between his, but tonight, in the midst of him lying on their bed and her teasingly tugging his pants off, his dick ended up in her mouth. He's not quite sure when it happened - though it was probably when she licked a stripe up the side of it and his hips bucked up longing -, and he cares even less.

As amazing as it feels for him though, he can tell it's not the most comfortable position for her, and he's nothing if not attentive in the bedroom. "Hey," he pants, struggling to sit up, "come up here."

Tris releases him with a wet pop and starts slinking her way up his body, but he stops her when she's no higher than his navel. "No, not like that," he says, and then grabs for her hips, trying to maneuver her into the position he wants without words.

She looks down at him apprehensively once she's perched over his face with her knees bookending his head, but with the first swipe of his tongue between her legs it disappears completely. Tobias' arms hook around her thighs, though he hardly needs to hold her in place; the more his tongue works between her folds the more she grinds down against him.

It's not until she pitches forward - finally seeming to remember that he wants her mouth on him just as much as she wants his - that the angle changes just enough to make her thighs clench around him, and if her tongue wasn't wrapped around his cock she'd be moaning so loud surely anyone passing the door of his apartment would hear her moaning.

The sound of her voice vibrating against him, of her hair brushing the inside of his thigh, and the taste of her drowning his tongue makes him come quick, unexpected, and intense. His entire body convulses like it's zeroing down to the spot where her mouth is warm and wet and all around him.

It takes him a while to recover, for his brain to kick back to life and his body to stop trembling with the pleasure of it, but when he does, it's with the determination to make her come just as hard, and if he can't do that with his mouth then he'll fuck her until the only name she remembers is his she'll be moaning and chanting and panting it so much.


	52. Goodbye - The Happy Ending out-take

**Visual Prompt:**

**Could you write something for tris and tobias like that, with her comforting him about something. Maybe Tori's death, we didn't really get to see them discuss that much in p &f. Thanks!**

* * *

It's only a few days after the bombing that they hold the memorial for Tori. Tris is still unsteady on her feet from the concussion and even as she insists that she doesn't need Tobias' help in the shower he ignores her protests and joins her. They are both unusually quiet, going through the motions of bathing almost robotically, if at a snails pace since their minds are clearly elsewhere.

Tobias rinses Tris' hair gently, his fingers coaxing the knots from it under the spray of water as guilt and grief weigh heavily on his shoulders because whenever anyone mentions Tori all Tobias can do is silently thank God that it wasn't Tris; that Benjamin is school-aged, that Matthew is the fussy baby he is, so that neither of their sons were in danger that day.

And he feels guilty for those thoughts because in the end Tori is still dead, even if that doesn't feel real yet. She was always a force to be reckoned with, even when all she was, was the best tattoo artist Dauntless had. Still, he holds Tris tighter, and even though they're both clean now they linger under the spray, delaying the inevitable.

Their fingers and toes are pruney by the time they do get out, since they can't hide in the silent, steamy shower stall forever. As Tobias wraps Tris in a towel she gives him a small smile, trying to force her lips up to show her gratitude. But it falls from her face a moment later, having barely existed to begin with.

"How do we say goodbye to Tori?" she asks, her voice raw and tears already cascading down her cheeks, like her words have loosened something she's been holding back for days. She probably has, when he thinks about it.

His reply is a helpless, "I don't know."

He doesn't, not really. There's a ceremony to mark her passing, and a celebration of her life, but - like the friends and family they lost during the war -, they will always carry an empty space around inside them: the one Tori used to inhabit.

Tobias does what he can though, and that amounts to holding Tris as she cries against his chest. She clings to him too, with a desperation he hasn't felt since the war thrumming in the tiny, wet spaces between them.

And he cries too; for Tori, and for a lot of other reasons that make him feel selfish. and it's better he gets it out, here and now, because even if he wasn't a Dauntless leader again the only person who he ever lets see him this vulnerable is Tris. He _cannot_ be weak, not in front of other people; not his friends or his sons or the faction he has to lead now.

Eventually her tears slow to a trickle, and though they never really go away, she tries smiling at him again as she wipes her eyes and it's a little more successful this time. "I'm okay," she reassures him, wiping a stray tear from his lashes too. "Are you?"

"I have to be."


	53. The Marauding Bear - 40 Weeks out-take

**Visual prompt:**

* * *

 

Tobias’ first, sleepy thought when he hears the drawers opening is that Tris forgot to tell him that she has an early meeting. He rolls over, intending to ask her what she has to do that has her waking up before the sun is up, but then his shoulder collides with hers and he realizes it isn’t Tris he is hearing.

If he wasn’t so used to this it would be cause for concern, but since Matthew got big enough to sleep in a toddler bed instead of a crib Tobias and Tris had been woken up by him flushing the toilet over and over again at 5am, and by him decorating the kitchen in cling wrap and tinfoil at 2:30 in the morning, and - apparently - by him deciding his parents clothes are better on the floor than in their drawers this morning.

“There’s a bear raiding our dresser,” Tobias mumbles, knocking into Tris’ shoulder with his own to wake her up too.

“What?” she slurs, sleepily, looking at him utterly confused before her eyes reel around to find Matty crouching in front of their dresser, his favourite fuzzy bear onesie keeping him warm in the pre-dawn chill.


	54. 6 Fears (explicit)

**Prompt: could you do one where Tris and Tobias get it on during initiation? ~ Clare**

* * *

 

Technically, the last place Tris should be sleeping in Tobias' apartment. Not so much because there's a law against initiates and instructors 'fraternizing' - this is Dauntless after all - but because it's weak. Because she's too scared after being attacked to stay in the dorms. That's the part of this that's unacceptable, that's not  _Dauntless_. Nevermind the other initiates chose sexual assault and attempted murder as a means of intimidation.

But, regardless, Tris doesn't feel safe sleeping in the dorm, and Tobias doesn't feel safe letting her sleep there, so she doesn't. Sure, she  _pretends_  to go to sleep in there every night, but once everyone else has actually fallen asleep she sneaks out and into Tobias' apartment. At first he lets her have the bed and he takes the floor, but after a few mornings of him waking up wincing at the crick in his back she whispers, sweet and shy, that "it's a big bed," one night.

And that first night they sleep on opposite edges of the bed, and though it's an improvement over sleeping on the floor, it's not exactly comfortable either. And it presents it's own problems. Problems that dissolve like mist after their first kiss at the bottom of the Chasm.

They still have to keep up the appropriate appearances outside the confines of his apartment, but inside it… well… things are very different, inside it. There are kisses - a lot of them after their first -, and there are a lot of other 'firsts' between them after that because Tobias is just as inexperienced as Tris is. And that makes Tris feel better, more confident, because even if he's looked at other girls before he's never touched them. It's just her and him and clumsy, uncertain fingers, and soft, insistent lips, and a need that seems to be unquenchable no matter what they do.

It's not until the night before she's supposed to go through her fear landscape that they have sex for the first time though. "Tris," Tobias groans, his arms shaking less from bearing his weight as he hovers above her and more because he's nervous and trying to do the right thing by making sure this is what she wants before doing anything else.

"I don't want to wait any more," she murmurs, straining up to draw his lips back to hers, because they've had this conversation before. "I want you. Now."

His entire body gives into her, and soon enough the only thing he's thinking about is the two of them and the way her knees ride his hips, pushing his sleep pants down a little more every time he rocks against her; the way her fingers dig into his hair and tug, and for half a second of clarity he vows to never shave it short again.

"Trust me," he says in same solemn tone he wants to say 'love me' in as he kisses the small, silky patches of skin his boy-brain would never think of as pleasure points. Her eyes, her cheeks, her neck, then further, licking a line down to the peaked tips of her breasts, and then even further still.

And as she's breathing heavy and writhing under him he vows to do something nice for Shauna and Lauren for sitting him down the night he told Tris she looked good when they were all drinking at the Chasm and bestowing upon him all the tricks of the trade to fuck Tris into happiness her first time.

He makes her come with his mouth the first time, and the second with his fingers, just to be on the safe side. He's sure to get himself off too so he'll last once he's inside her, but it's not difficult to get hard again; not with her sweaty and naked and under him.

Tobias gives her a shy, wry smile as he digs a box of condoms from the nightstand and rips it open. Tris surprises him though when she pulls the little foil packet from his fingers and tears it open; even more when she rolls it down the length of his cock, her nails dragging lines up his chest on her way back up once she's done.

It's takes them a minute to get their bodies properly aligned because even though they know the mechanics there's still some finesse involved. Tobias pushes into her slowly, eyes locked on her face waiting for any hint of pain. "Are you okay?" he asks nervously when her eyes scrunch up like she might be.

"I'm okay," she says on an exhale. "It's just different."

"Good different?"

"Yeah," she nods. "I just feel… full, I guess."

Just those words coming out of her mouth makes his cock twitch like he's going to come. He bites the insides of his lips bloody so he doesn't.

He starts rocking into her slowly, moving just enough for it to feel good, and he feels her muscles relax around him slightly before she starts rocking her hips in time to his, the bed creaking lowly as their bodies move together, a soft undulation like waves on the lake carrying them away from what they were and towards something new.

It doesn't last as long as Tobias wants, not with the way her sweaty skin feels slipping against his own and little whimpering moans she makes when he finds something deep inside her that makes her legs shake and her breathing stutter. But there's no law that they can only do this once, he thinks ruefully, after, once his brain is able to form coherent thoughts again and they're wrapped around each other under the blue quilt that smells like sweat and sex now.

He paces like a caged animal the next day, as she goes through her fear landscape. She looks pale and shaken by the time she finishes, but all the initiates do. Unlike the other initiates though, she only has 6 fears.


	55. Our Happily Ever After - The Happy Ending out-take

**Visual Prompt:**

 

**~thegigglygummibear**

* * *

 

It starts with a movie. A movie so old that there isn’t any dialogue, just title cards. They watch it, curled up on blankets in the park and projected onto the crumbling side of a brick building. It’s Benjamin who gets the idea to do the same. All they really need is a camera and chalk board, he says.

The next day they dress up, cover their faces in exaggerated makeup, and set the camera to black and white. And Matthew - his brother at his side to help him spell the bigger, harder words - writes, in his untidy, little boy scrawl, what each scene is. They do one with cops and robbers, another as firefighters, and eventually they even dress Sophie up in Matthew’s old teddy bear onesie and pretend to run away from her, terrified.

It’s not until after, when it’s almost sunset and the kids have been scrubbed clean of their stage makeup that Tris gets the idea for a family picture. She corrals them into the backyard again, and carefully writes out ‘this is our happily ever after’ on the chalkboard.

The picture only captures her and Tobias’ hands as they hold the plaque and the children are slightly out of focus behind them, but Tris thinks it’s just perfect.


	56. Impressive

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I changed the timing of some of the initiation stuff, but who cares, right?

**Prompt: Drunk!Tobias spilling his guts to Zeke about Tris**

 

* * *

Tobias is drunk. Spectacularly, messily, drunk as he sprawls across Zeke's floor. Shauna and Lauren are passed out on his bed in a pile of girl limbs and knotted hair and perfume, and he'd think Zeke is asleep on the sofa, too, except for the fact that Zeke's foot collides with his and makes his eyes snap open.

"Who was that girl, at the Chasm?" he asks, voice slurring over the words a little.

"One of my initiates."

"No shit," Zeke scoffs. "What's her name?"

"Tris," Tobias says affectionately, too drunk to carefully modulate his tone like he normally would.

"She was the first jumper, right?"

There's heavy betting before each initiate class arrives. Some people lay odds on how many transfers there will be, and from which factions. Other people bid on who the first jumper will be. The safe bet is someone from Dauntless, but there's no money in a 'safe bet'. Zeke bet on the first jumper being Erudite, banking on one of those big brains working out the logical conclusion that Dauntless wouldn't ask them to kill themselves first thing, so really there was nothing to fear, but fear itself, as the saying goes.

He lost a lot of money on that bet, but the little Abnegation girl who stole his money doesn't know that, so he tries not to hold it against her.

"She looks different than I expected," he says eventually.

"Well, what did you expect her to look like?" Tobias snaps, defensive.

"Like you," Zeke says, knocking his foot again. "Sour and surly and like she's got a stick up her ass."

"She's… impressive," he says on a sigh. "She's just fucking impressive, man."

"Oh yeah? How so?" Zeke's got another bet going on and a little insider information wouldn't hurt, but more than that he's not drunk enough to miss the dopey smile tilting up Tobias' lips. He's never seen his best friend look like that before, not in any of the times Dauntless girls have been hitting on him, and not any other time, either.

"She's not weak. Everyone thinks she is because she's so small, but she's not weak. She's  _determined_. Even from the first day - even from the first time she held a gun in her hand -, she was determined," he rambles.

Tobias sits up suddenly causing the room to spin, and he grips either side of his head like that will stop it. "You know she climbed up that Ferris Wheel like it was nothing, too? Like it was nothing," he says again, emphatic. "Even when it almost killed her she wasn't that scared. I wanted to kiss her so bad, after." The words pop out of Tobias' mouth unbidden and his eyes widen in shock, like he can't believe he actually said it out loud, but he did, and they both heard it.

"So you want to kiss her, huh?" Zeke teases.

"Yeah, I mean yeah. Yeah, I do," he admits stumbling all over himself in the process, but sounding more certain with each word.

"There's gotta be a rule against that."

"There isn't. I checked," Tobias says assuredly, flopping back down.

"Of course you did," Zeke mutters.

"But it still wouldn't look good, you know?" Tobias says, either ignoring or not hearing him. "People will say that we're, you know,  _screwing_. That I gave her high marks because of it. I don't want people thinking that about her. She's not like that."

"So she's like you then? Not sleeping with anyone, ever?"

"No. I don't know. I don't think so. She's not like me though. She's here because she belongs here."

"So are you. No one who only has four fears is here because they don't belong here,  _Four_."

"No, she belongs here," he reiterates, adamant. "I just ended up here."

"If you say so," Zeke dismisses.

Tobias curls up on his side, childlike, a yawn stretching his mouth so far open Zeke can see a dark cavity forming in the lines of one of his molars. He's pretty sure Tobias mumbles something like, "I like her hair, all loose and blonde," before he passes out, but maybe he's just imagining things.

And he thinks he must be because the next morning, when he casually mentions Tris as they down cups of coffee trying to be human and not hung over Tobias groans and hangs his head in his hands and goes stark white at the memory that he told Tris she looked good. Zeke can only imagine his reaction if he remembered all the shit he told him, later.


	57. Whoopie Pie - one word, one sentence

**Prompt: drabble based on the 'whoopie pie' sentence in One Word, One Sentence**

* * *

 

"Wanna make a Whoopie Pie?" Tris asks, her eyes wide and eager. She's sprawled across Tobias' bed, her cheeks rosy and her limbs loose and very drunk.

And Tobias is drunk too - both of them needing a way to forget all the horrors that they've seen since the war, since the Bureau, since coming back -, but he never would have suspected Tris to be into that sort of thing. He certainly isn't. And he says as much, his voice sharp, and expression horrified.

"Oh… My… God… Tobias!," she gasps, laughing. "What do you think a 'whoopie pie' is?"

"It's, you know, it's," he stutters, trying to find a polite way to say that it's two guys fucking a girl sandwiched between them without actually using those words. And it takes him a while, but he does; enough to make Tris understand, at least.

"Ew," she says, her nose scrunched up in disgust. "No. Who even does that? But no, it's a cake, like a cake cookie. With icing in the middle. And you have icing in the fridge, and I'm hungry. I want something sweet," she whines.

"I don't have cake," Tobias points out feeling a hell of a lot better about the whole thing.

"We can make it!"

She bounces off the bed and into the tiny kitchenette and starts pulling things out of the cabinet, but 30 minutes later when the timer on the toaster oven pings sharply the only thing they have is something that looks like a hockey puck and probably tastes just as good too because Tris is  _drunk drunk drunk_  and that and baking don't mix.

Undeterred she snags the can of frosting from the fridge and two spoons and they sit in the bed cross-legged like little kids, eating the whole jar. It's not until later, when their buzz has worn off and they've both turned faintly green, that Tris kicks can off the bed groaning that they really shouldn't have eaten the whole thing.


	58. Garters part II (explicit) - The Happy Ending out-take

**Prompt: a smutty drabble where Tobias goes with Tris to visit a faction but while in a meeting Tobias is teasing her under the table to the point where Tris has to call a 15 minute break and you know the rest**

* * *

 

When you have three kids you have to be creative with where you have sex. And Tris and Tobias have had sex in a car, in a bar, in a house, on a mouse (not really, but Tris can't help thinking in rhyme because she spends so much time reading Dr. Suess to her kids).

But Tris thinks she should really draw the line somewhere; here, actually, considering her and Tobias are at the twice yearly conference with the Bureau and his fingers keep flicking under the hem of her dress, teasingly playing with her garters.

She levels him with a glare that's as sharp as a rap across his knuckles and his hand retreats, but his smirk is rakish. They've been playing this game all morning, and Tris is thankful, at least, that despite the fact they're in a room with a couple dozen other people they're all so spread out that no one can see what Tobias is doing, though the effects are painted all over her cheeks in red.

She bites her lip to bite back a moan when his hand dives under the skirt of her dress again, his fingers firmer, no longer teasing. His hand curls around her thigh, callouses dragging up the soft, sensitive flesh, knitting through the elastic of her garters and tugging in a way that shouldn't make her clench but does regardless, until the side of his hand is pressed up against her and they can both feel how drenched her panties are.

"Two minutes," he rasps wetly against her ear and then his hand is gone and so is he, leaving a whisper of heat curling inside her.

Two minutes feels like an eternity, the seconds ticking by slow as honey; a sweet agony that spreads across Tris' tongue, thick and cloying. She takes pains not to draw attention to herself as she rises to leave; carefully pushing her chair back against the table without making a sound, tip-toeing out and trying not to let the stiletto point of her heels click too rapidly against the floor.

The hallway is seemingly empty when she steps into it. The room they were in is right at the bend of an L-shaped corridor, and though one end of it is well lighted and well used, the other is in shaded half-light, a curtain of plastic sheeting fluttering in the air stirred by the air conditioner partially blocking it off.

She pushes it aside and steps through, certain this is where he's waiting for her even if she can't see him yet. "Tobias?" she calls out, her voice a strained whisper, hoping to summon the person she's looking for and not someone else.

Her underwear tug against her, wet and uncomfortable, with every step. It's not until she's fifteen feet into the corridor and looking back at the entrance like she might have made a mistake when he takes her by surprise and pushes her up against the wall. Tobias knocks the air out of her lungs with the force of it, and he doesn't give her a chance to get her breath back, his mouth moving insistently against her own, claiming every part of her with his lips alone.

Tobias backs her down the hall, the two of them moving as a clumsy whole while one of his hand keeps her shackled to him and the other searches out an unlocked door. Her heels clack against the floor, echo off the walls, and if that wasn't enough of a hint, the sink he lifts her up onto tells her everything she needs to know about the room they've found themselves in.

This isn't the first bathroom they've had sex in, and they both know the routine well. Tobias hoists Tris up to sit on the rim of the sink, his hands prying apart her thighs without his lips breaking away from hers. They're used to fucking under the threat of being discovered too so he wastes no time pushing her underwear aside and curling his fingers into her.

Her pleasured gasp sounds like a scream, intensified over and over again as it ricochets off the tiled walls.

"You were thinking about this all morning, weren't you?" Tobias challenges, mouthing at her neck like a hungry animal. "That's why you wore these today, isn't it? To torment me," he says, snapping one of the straps holding up her garters in accusation.

"Yes," she moans, because she did; because there's no reason to deny it now with his fingers buried inside her again.

That little word seems to be all the confirmation he needs though because a second later his hands, and hers, are scrabbling his belt, clumsy and hasty and needy. And then he's shoving her hands out his way, insinuating himself into her body with a swift, fluid motion at odds with their frantic actions before.

Tris moans, loud, louder still because of where they are, her back bowing in pleasure as Tobias moves inside her.

"I wish you were facing the other way, so you could see what you look like when I fuck you," he pants against her ear as he head bumps against the mirror behind her, above the sink, with each of his forceful thrusts. It's so forbidden - so ingrained from their Abnegation upbringing - that the thought makes something hot and tempting fluttering through her veins, daring her to chase it.

She can't though, not with Tobias pinning her in place, one hand gripping her hip so hard she'll surely have bruises, and the other knotted in her hair so he can angle her head back just the way he wants.

And he doesn't stop talking. He fills her mind with dirty words, promises of what he'll do to her when they get home, when he can fuck her properly, in their bed, the same way his cock is filling her now. It's not that he's never said things like that before, but never like this; never so blunt and bold and demanding. Her body clutches at his words desperately; the tightness coiled at the apex of her thighs spiraling out to make her toes curl and her fingers dig into his shoulders, until it inevitably snaps and if he wasn't holding her in place she'd surely fall to the floor.

Tobias thrusts turn hard and erratic and while her body is still shivering with the aftereffects of her orgasm, his own rips through his body. It doesn't feel like a finish though, to either of them; it feels like foreplay, like a start, like a promise of things to come.


	59. Exposure Therapy (M) - Three Parts Dead out-take

**Prompt: I was re-reading TPD and I was wondering if you could write about when Tobias got sex advice from Zeke? I can only imagine how hilariously awkward it would be.**

* * *

 

When Tobias hears someone bang on the door of the Control Room he actually startles and drops the book he had in his lap onto the floor. He hopes it's Tris finally back from her nighttime training sortie with the initiates, but he's not too disappointed to find it's Zeke with a bag of food in one hand and a bottle of alcohol in the other.

"Tris said you'd probably work through dinner," Zeke smirks, shoving the bag of food at Tobias and sauntering in, claiming the chair that Harrison - and more often, Tris - usually occupies.

"Why aren't you at home?" Tobias asks, reclaiming his chair.

"Eh, Shauna's having a 'girls night' with Lauren. I got kicked out."

He watches idly as Tobias picks the fallen book up off the floor, neatly turning the spine towards himself so he can read it.

" _Clinical Handbook of Exposure Therapy_?" he asks, his eyebrow cocked skeptically. "Heavy stuff."

"Exposure therapy's helped some people get over their fears," Tobias shrugs.

"You finally trying to get over your fear of heights so you can go zip lining with us?"

"No," Tobias says flatly, his stomach knotting at the very thought.

"Ah… you trying to get over that other thing?" Zeke asks delicately.

" _No_."

Zeke raises his eyebrows again at Tobias' emphatic tone, and for a second Tobias wonders how he can be so expressive, just by doing that, but then his embarrassment supersedes everything else, and he blurts out, "it's for Tris."

Zeke nods more to himself than Tobias, taking a huge bite of one of the sandwiches he brought with him, a thoughtful look on his face. "She trying to get over her fear of guns? I gotta say, Uri's going to pout when he doesn't get to do all that cool spy shit bodyguarding her."

Tobias' only answer is a shrug, since it's better everyone think that than know what she's really afraid of.

"So what are you doing holed up in here tonight?" Zeke says, motioning to the monitors in front of them.

"Just some house-cleaning type stuff. Better to do it at night so it doesn't disrupt anything," Tobias dismisses. And it's true, that's what he's doing, but really he just can't sleep without the weight of Tris in his arms; every time he tries not to he'll jolt awake in a blind panic, sure she's in danger or dead, just like he did the night she left him for Erudite.

"You really need to get some help in here. You're going to kill yourself trying to do this and be a leader at the same time."

"If I had the time I'd train someone else, but I don't. Besides, I don't trust anyone with this job other than myself."

"You know, at some point, you're going to realize it's okay to ask for help," Zeke says sagely.

"Yeah, because that's worked out so well for me," Tobias scoffs. "Our alliance with the Factionless was my doing and look how well that turned out."

Wisely, Zeke doesn't say anything. Instead, he turns the conversation to lighter topics, or as light as they can be, given their circumstances. It's not until he's crumpling the paper wrapper his sandwich came in and tossing it into the bag that he stops abruptly, his expression a mix of concentration and something else Tobias can't quite put his finger on.

"Hang on…,"

"What?" Tobias asks, the word muffled by the food in his mouth.

"Tris' thing with guns… that didn't start until after the simulation attack. Unless she went back into her fear landscape since then. Wait, did she? I thought you burned all the simulation data?"

Tobias sets the remains of his food down very carefully, then buys himself a little more time by purposefully brushing the crumbs off his fingers. He can't think of a convincing lie though, so all he says is, "it's something else. I mean, she's still too freaked out to shoot a gun, but her fear… it's something else."

"What?" Zeke asks curiously.

"I'm not telling you that."

"Oh, come on," he groans dramatically.

"Look, if this was me we were talking about I'd tell you-"

"-No you wouldn't," Zeke mutters.

"-But it's not. I'm not going to betray Tris' confidence," he tries to say resolutely, but honestly he's kind of at his wits end, and he's beginning to think the only person who can help him is Zeke because, textbooks on exposure therapy aside, he really has no idea what the hell he's doing.

"You know what I was just saying about asking for help…," Zeke trails off, giving him a significant look.

"That's what I'm trying to do," Tobias grouses because what other reason would he have for reading the  _Clinical Handbook of Exposure Therapy_?

"I want to help," Zeke says insistently.

"It's not… Look. Tris would lose her shit if she knew other people knew about this," Tobias huffs. "Fears are private."

"I won't tell her," Zeke says with surprising solemnity. "Four, look at me. I won't tell her. Whatever we talk about won't leave this room, I swear."

"Why?" Tobias asks, his suspicious dragging the word out until it sounds much longer than three little letters.

"Because you're my friend. Because she's good for you. Because I want to help, if I can," he reels off, though it doesn't quite have the ring of truth to it.

Tobias looks at him appraisingly for a long minute before he says, hesitatingly, "you swear you won't tell anyone?"

"I never told anyone about Marcus, did I?" Zeke challenges, and really that's all the assurance Tobias needs.

"She's, uh… scared… of me. Well, not really me, but intimacy. In general," he stutters. "And. Yeah, we've been, or I've been, trying to help her with the exposure therapy, but. I don't really know what I'm doing. And I thought… it would be better - for her -, if I did. But I don't. Know how to… make her feel good, that is." Tobias feels like his face is on fire.

"She's afraid of intimacy?" Zeke asks, a perplexed look on his face. "What does that even mean?"

"She's, you know, afraid of… being physical. With me. Not  _me,_ exactly. I was the person who appeared in her fear landscape, because she's never been with anyone else."

"Oh.  _Oh_ ," Zeke says, finally getting it. "She's never… and you never have, either, right? Unless you were hooking up with chicks behind my back."

"I wasn't," Tobias scowls.

"Yeah, I didn't think so. I can help," Zeke says resolutely and with far more seriousness than Tobias is used to from his best friend.

He swivels his chair around so that he's facing Tobias, elbows on his knees and chin propped up in his hand. Tobias feels like he's being sized up, judged against some standard, of what he's not sure.

"What?" he asks, a little defensively.

"Nothing, just trying to figure out where to start," Zeke says. "You want to make her feel good right? Try to try to associate her fear with something pleasant instead of painful?"

"Basically," Tobias confirms.

"Well, most guys - if they're not complete idiots - focus on the clit and tits," Zeke says like they're talking about something as mundane as what scope they prefer on their guns.

Tobias looks at him, expressionless, for a long moment before he says, "yeah. I'm going to need to be drunk for this," and reaches for the bottle between them on the table, feeling more uncomfortable than he's ever felt in entire his life.

The liquor burns all the way down, but it's better to focus on that than the emotions that have sweat prickling unpleasantly at the back of his neck.

Zeke gives him a few minutes - a few minutes in which Tobias makes a healthy dent in the bottle - before continuing. "So, like I was saying, most guys only focus on the clit and tits, if they know what they're doing at all, which, according to Shauna and Lauren, they don't."

"Yeah," Tobias says faintly because when those two get drunk they forget to use their 'indoor voices' a lot of the time.

"And, I mean, as long as Tris isn't into anything freaky, that's not a bad place to start, I guess."

"You  _guess_?" Tobias says, incredulous and unwilling to subject himself to this if all he's going to get out of it are Zeke's surmises.

"I'm just sayin'; when I lost my v-card at 13 I didn't even know that," he says with an airy wave of his hand.

Tobias chokes on the sip he's just taken from the bottle. "Seriously?"

"Anyway, it took me a while to figure out the basics, but my loss is your gain, so try not to be an asshole," Zeke snaps.

"Sorry," Tobias mutters.

"It's fine. The thing to remember about chicks is that they're different from guys."

"Funny enough, I figured that out," Tobias mutters as he takes another sip, one that mercifully goes down the right way this time.

"Are you even going to remember this in the morning?" Zeke asks, glaring at the bottle.

"I'm pretty sure there isn't enough brain bleach to wipe this from my mind, ever," Tobias snarks.

"Good. Pay attention. Because girls are different. Guys, we're all about the dick, right? I mean other stuff feels good, but when it comes down to it, as long as we get our dick wet it's probably going to be the greatest moment of our lives. Girls are different."

"So you keep saying."

"Because it's the truth. Shauna, she can't feel anything from the waist down, but I can still get her wet. You know how?"

"Do I really need to know this?" Tobias groans.

"I get her wet by knowing that there are plenty of other places that are just as sensitive," Zeke persists. "Lots of them. A girls body, it's like a buffet. Yeah, you wanna go for dessert first, but that should be the cherry on top of an excellent meal. So take your time, savor everything. Show a little tenderness."

"Isn't that a song?"

"Yeah, it is, for good reason, too."

Tobias sits, with squirming impatience most of the time, as Zeke takes the next twenty minutes explaining just where those areas are and what to do with them. By the time he finishes, Tobias isn't sure if he'll ever be able to look his best friend in the face again, but underneath all that embarrassment, his words have been indelibly imprinted on Tobias' brain.

And, once he's alone again, he finds he can't wait for Tris to get back so they can go to bed and Tobias can put Zeke's claims to the test.


End file.
